


Ascendancy: Darkness of the Cosmos

by OneThousandCuts



Series: The Ascendant [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Body Horror, Medical Torture, Multi, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, canon-typical alcohol use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2020-03-13 12:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 75,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18940726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneThousandCuts/pseuds/OneThousandCuts
Summary: Sequel to The Ascendant. On the run from a mad man turned demi-god, Tifa must confront disturbing changes in herself, and their inevitable conclusion.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2012 to ff. net

_One year ago-_

"There was once a beautiful creature, who traveled from world to world. She fed upon each world's lifestream, taking them into herself. At the end of her journey, she planned to return to the center of the universe, where all life could join as one with her in a great reunion. But, she came to one planet that didn't like her plan. They claimed to be the true keepers of life, but they could only defeat her by giving up many of their own. In the end, all the lifestreams she carried were released into that one special planet, and they sealed her away." Eden stopped short, noticing Marlene's struggle to stay awake. It was too bad; there was a lot more to that story.

The psychic numbness lingered still, as two more tears leaked out beyond her awareness, dripping softly onto her hands. "Don't cry, Tifa. You're safe. He has chosen you...even if you can't stand it..." Small hands cupped her face, drying them again. Although the words carried a definite threat, Eden's voice cooed, as if to tempt her into asking more. "His will can endure in your place."

 


	2. Poetic Justice

A stranger. From the time Tifa had touched down on this new world, Amyntas, that's all she'd been, and knew that forevermore, in one sense or another, that's all she could ever be. She was the only human being who'd survived the Planet's murder. Tifa did her best not to let her thoughts linger on that day, now a full year past. She was fantastically lucky, she continually reminded herself. Her first encounter with the Amyntasi, humanoids whose apparent differences from humans were incredibly slight, although mutually cautious, had turned into a relationship of care and compassion. The small farming family had taken her in and nursed her back to health, never once questioning whether or not she'd been completely honest with them about who and what she was, or what had happened to Gaia. They'd taken a tremendous risk for her sake.

But as she recovered, her original idea of finding some substantial way to contribute to that poor family in exchange for letting her stay on a permanent basis seemed more and more selfish; ill-thought out at best. There was too much Tifa didn't know about Amyntas as a whole. Would someone in authority punish or harm them if they found out they were harboring her? She had no clue about this world's sociopolitical climate, but she wasn't about to stick around only to find out they were risking execution or worse. Enough-too much-death already lay behind her, and Tifa wasn't willing to chance inviting more bloodshed into anyone's life. So she left them. She thanked them for all they'd done, and set out on a road northward, uncertain of her destination.

Mirnu, Saillyo his wife, and their little daughter, Laiyon: Tifa would never forget them, even if she someday found a reason to wish she could. They'd taught her to speak all over again, helped her through the often-poisonous adventure of learning what she could and couldn't eat here, and comforted and trusted her long before they truly knew each other. Because of them, it was at least remotely possible for her,  _an alien_ , to survive and maybe even make some kind of a meaningful living in their world.

Fondly, she remembered that they were planet worshippers, much like the Cetra of Gaia, though they never claimed any special relationship to Amyntas. Saillyo told her that they revered their world because it was the closest life-bearing world to the origin of all, and thereby, the strongest. Learning this, she recalled how both Aerith and Genesis had been fascinated by Minerva's choice to lead her here for refuge, rather than guiding her to complete Omega's purpose as originally planned, which was to return her to the heart of the cosmos to be reborn.

To that end, Tifa also recalled wandering late into the first evening before making camp, and thinking that in some ways, Gaia's soul, the Goddess, was no different from any other living thing. Or, perhaps it was more accurate that all life that had descended from her being shared in her most sincere desire. That desire was not to prosper or find solace, but to survive. Comfort and safety would have led Minerva straight into the "origin of all"; to the Promised Land. But Minerva had chosen Amyntas instead, not quite ready or willing to accept that her true, living form had been destroyed.

For now, Tifa was content to let Minerva use her to extend her life. Once Minerva acknowledged that she'd been defeated and sought to return to the Promised Land, it would mean Tifa's time was up as well. In essence, she felt the same way the Goddess did. She wasn't really ready to be finished with her life, even for all the grim turns and losses they'd both endured. The very idea that one strong-willed man could and did crush the Planet was just still so surreal; too perverse to believe it was absolutely true. There had to be some kind of catch; a saving grace that maybe they were looking too hard to see.

Although Amyntas could never feel like home, the people of this world seemed quite intent on reminding her of Gaia. Her journey had ended early one evening at a surprisingly large, almost out of place metropolis. It towered out of the flatlands like a misplaced mountain. Ground-level columns of stone that looked like marble and quartz composed the buildings, which were then clustered together to form several ascending tiers. Each tier was linked to the others by bridges and stairwells, leading up to the tallest column in the very center. Tifa had been tempted to believe that the city was just one massive structure, until she quietly strode in through the ground-level streets and saw that they were slightly separated by narrow passages and alleyways. Children playing outside of their front doors stared at her in silent curiosity; some of them instantly retreated inside, probably to tell their parents or hide.

What happened afterward was just a small, cosmically displaced slice of old Midgar life. Tifa didn't get to learn very much about the city that day, because its police force caught up with her-not that she was running-and asked only part of the slew of questions she expected: "Who are you? Where are you from? Are you lost? Do you understand us? Oh, we see...no need to worry. We can take you back to where you belong."

As it turned out, according to them, she was a physically disfigured, mentally challenged homeless person who'd wandered away from her rightful place in the slums. Her suppler human skin, her unusually accented speech, and lesser number of finger joints didn't exactly seem to drive home the point that she wasn't one of them. Instead, they dismissed her as a terrestrial genetic accident, and escorted her to the western-most edge of town, where a small village comprised mostly of shacks and dug-out homes had sprung up to house the most destitute, along with whatever else this world considered untouchable. Unlike Midgar, the sky was open overhead, but Tifa didn't have to try very hard to conjure up an estimation of how the upper tiers related to the land-crawling poor. They were hardly even welcomed into the city proper, if this experience meant anything. The whole situation, at just a first glance, was sickeningly familiar.

But that was also the day Tifa reaped a tiny speck of hope. She knew how to live in the slums, and how to maneuver within the violent, territorial games without becoming too intimately involved in them. Most importantly, she knew how to acquire a safe niche of neutrality and respect from all sides. In Midgar, that had meant just giving as good as she got, and surrounding herself with people who held a common grudge against ShinRa. Back then, she'd eventually become well known for good, cheap booze and grub, cleavage you didn't have to pay for to admire—but don't you dare touch-and a sound ass-kicking for anyone who needlessly crossed her. And if it turned out a fight was just the result of some stupid misunderstanding? Well, she'd happily be there to help patch up all those bruises and welts she'd earlier dished out. If she was in a good enough mood at the time, she might have even offered her victims a drink on the house...

Living in Midgar's sectored-off slums was often bitter and inglorious, but given something reminiscent of that time and place in her life, and considering everything that had transpired since then, Tifa would gladly accept it.

* * *

 

Casting off the thin layers of cloth she used for blankets, Tifa rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She'd gone to bed last night the same way she had for the past month since finishing the construction of her tiny, makeshift shack of a house, rehashing how she'd come to live here, and reminding herself why this was better than staying with Mirnu and Saillyo. Then, she'd curled up tight with what she figured had probably once been a really expensive, pristine set of drapes for a balcony window on the upper tiers and passed out.

Now, it was time to get up and pay her junkie neighbors their petty fee for letting her use their shower. Afterward, she'd wander the streets, looking for more materials to add some kind of plumbing system to her house. That is, if she didn't spend the entire time scouring the dumps for a solid chunk of scrap metal or sturdy stone for her neighbors' sloppy and ever-ongoing second floor construction project, so that she could use their shower again tomorrow. The materials she gave them never seemed to take shape, disappearing quite mysteriously. At first, she hadn't cared. It felt like a good deal to start, but their standards and demands for good materials had been growing increasingly stringent. Tifa tried not to dwell on the fact that she never saw them collecting anything for themselves anymore. She could do without a great deal, but access to running water was not something she was willing to sacrifice.

But first, she needed some kind of breakfast, whether she liked it or not. Tifa grimaced; just thinking about her food choices made her stomach turn. She could hit up the neighbors early, in hopes that they might send her off with a small sack of highly insubstantial grain flakes. On more than one occasion, she thought she'd seen them feeding their pet, whatever that animal was, the same stuff. The other option was to steal away to the garbage dump just outside the uptown border. As much as they'd been on Gaia, the extravagantly wealthy here were fond of pitching food because they'd prepared way, way too much for show. The dumps offered a lot more variety and not always a terrible flavor, if she managed to get there when the refuse was fairly fresh. Otherwise, she risked the filth and life-threatening contamination that were inherent in dumpster diving, not to mention the humiliation.

How funny, that she still found the time and energy to worry about humiliation, after unwittingly helping to cause Gaia's demise, Tifa mused.

_"But you didn't really,"_ Aerith's voice emerged into the fore of her thoughts.

Sighing, Tifa pushed her friend into the back of her mind. She wasn't in the mood for Aerith's platitudes and pep talks right now, and yes, it was her fault. No measure of consolation, even from Minerva Herself, could change Tifa's mind.  _She_  was the one who'd cared for Eden.  _She'd_  kept his violent intrusions into her psyche a secret for too long. And ultimately,  _she_  was the one who'd sought to save him, even when it had become blatantly obvious that the child's goal was to experience his Reunion and become Sephiroth. All of it she allowed, fully aware that Eden was quite literally a part of Sephiroth; even while her friends and family dropped like flies from Geostigma!

Tifa would be lying to herself if she didn't acknowledge that part of the reason she'd left Mirnu and Saillyo was because of how relentlessly her guilt weighed down on her. Even now that she knew it would probably be safe to return to them, she couldn't. Because some of the Amyntasi authorities had mistaken her for one of their own, albeit mutated or deformed, they'd inadvertently given her the lie she needed to protect the only ones who knew the truth if she chose to go back to them. But she couldn't bring herself to leave the city. The squalor, hunger, and hardship were the least of what Tifa felt she deserved.

Still, it was time to press on as always, and get her day started. There was work to do, scraps to collect, and a myriad of foul city odors to ignore. "The slums reek" seemed to be some kind of sacred universal law. Finally gathering the will to rise from her dingy sleeping mat, Tifa wafted the cheesy, salty, oniony stench radiating from her armpits and feet. A light breeze forced itself into her shack through the cracks in the scrap-metal walls, bringing with it the stale, bile-ridden musk of raw sewage. Home sweet and sour, pungent home.

For what little it was worth, Tifa brushed herself off, killed whatever insects crept between her and the front door, and headed over to the neighbor's house. Vaniir and the woman Tifa had thus far presumed to be his girlfriend, Neyli, were outside waiting for her as usual.

"Ah, Tifa! I see you've been working quite hard," Vaniir greeted her, motioning to the rust-free pile of metal sheets she'd left at their doorstep. "Come inside; bathe. Today, I have a special project for you!"

"What might that be?" Tifa replied evenly, clenching one fist at her side in frustration, while coming to the same realization she made on an almost daily basis about this man: She hated him!

Despite his professionally built home and running water, Vaniir's hygiene was probably worse than her own. His ear-length black hair was always matted down with what looked like weeks' worth of grease, and he clearly made no effort whatsoever to clean his teeth. There was somehow always a field of stubble taking over his face, and sleep crusts in the corners of his dim, pea-green eyes. And that was just his appearance! Vaniir's frail, willowy girlfriend, Neyli, almost never said a word to him, and always kept her gaze low to the ground when Tifa came over. Vaniir seemed to relish in how badly he intimidated her, particularly if anyone else was around, like he had something to prove.

Poor Neyli had the demeanor of a cruelly trained animal. She had gorgeous, light blonde hair that might have been able to tame itself, but the constant stress she was under made her tousle and pull at it, rendering it uneven and frizzy. Her light gray eyes were sunken in and eternally recovering from her most recent bout of crying. And she was tiny; malnourished. Whereas Vaniir was tubby and over-fed, Neyli was little more than a scarred and bruised skeleton. Tifa predicted that one day, she'd probably snap and turn on Vaniir, but until then, she was faithfully and fearfully obedient to the asshole's every whim. That was certainly one list of evils Tifa wanted to know nothing about.

Yet, it was Neyli who'd first offered her a hot shower and a few jugs of drinking water. That was the same day Tifa had started handing over portions of the scrap she'd gleaned as payment. Although Neyli was only trying to be charitable, Tifa feared how the then-intoxicated and enraged Vaniir might punish her for it. The last thing she wanted was for Neyli to garner even more of Vaniir's negative attention if and when the man became violent. Compensating him for the meager gift of water worked well to keep his temper in check.

"Well, you see...today, you're not going to waste any more time scavenging for pipes and scrap metal. It's going to be getting cold soon, so today, I need you go about a mile or two north of the city. You'll find some stampeding flocks of plains-birds. They're a handful, but I need you to take down a few of them and bring me their feathers. Who knows? Bring back enough, and I might not need them all..."

Neyli cowered closer to him, and feigned approval, "Yes. That is a good idea. Perhaps...if she brings enough, Tifa can keep a share for her home?"

Vaniir rolled his eyes, lightly slapped the back of her head, and grabbed her arm. "Stupid, stupid Neyli. You never think, do you? You have to try to  _think!_  We're going to sell the extras for food and our other expenses. If your pet freak needs anything more from us, she needs to give  _me-me, not you-_ a good reason why I should."

"But...!" Neyli started, but Vaniir tightened his hold on her arm, causing a joint to pop. Wincing, she crouched slightly, her eyes rapidly batting back tears while she covered her mouth. "Of course. I-I should have thought just a little harder about it...sorry, sorry, sorry..."

Tifa cast a death-glare his way. Oh, how she'd love to rip his head from his shoulders, and present it to Neyli on a sharpened pike. "That's not necessary. You'll have what you need before sundown, Vaniir," she muttered.

She stomped into their house, strode down a long hallway to the bathroom, and closed the door behind her. Tearing off her grime- covered top, she frowned. Since when had she accepted formal employment, if that's even what she could call it, from Vaniir?

_"Hey! How about, 'Since when do I let dirt-bags walk all over helpless people?!'"_ Yuffie interjected.  _"I remember how you used to 'reform' tons of his kind back in Seventh Heaven with just one or two good ass-beatings! What gives, Tifa?"_

"This isn't our world, Yuffie," Tifa mumbled. She'd long since learned to act like she was only talking to herself when responding to her friends. "Besides, the last time I stepped in for someone who was 'helpless'..."

_"In hindsight, was Eden really that helpless, Tifa? And what about all the times you were there for me?"_  Cloud broke in.

"But I knew you for a long time, Cloud. Please, I don't want to think about this," Tifa replied, and her friends graciously fell silent.

She would do what she needed to do to get by; what she always did since coming to this city. Before returning to Vaniir with his demands, she'd find a place to hide a small stash of feathers for herself. When night fell, she'd retrieve it, and smuggle it into her dinky shack.

Finally relaxing under a scalding spray, Tifa scraped her nails along her scalp and vigorously scrubbed her skin. The Amyntasi's skin was thicker and tougher, so she had to use her bare hands. What passed for a decent body sponge to these people would probably leave her raw with scrapes and scratches all over the place. Breathing in the hot, steamy air, Tifa decided that Yuffie was wrong. Roughing up her most despicable patrons had never taught them anything but not to frequent a bar tended and managed by a strong fighting woman. No, the only time she'd ever encountered one of those bastards who'd truly seen the light was when his body was riddled with Geostigma. Sadly, some people just never appreciated their lives until death became their drinking buddy.

Too bad she couldn't give Vaniir a taste of  _that_  medicine.

"Tifa! Time's up! Get the fuck out of my house and get to work!" Vaniir shouted through the locked door.

Something had to have pissed him off for him to drop his faux professional gentleman act so completely. Down the hall, she could make out Neyli's muffled whimpering. Tifa sighed through her teeth, knowing that she'd probably tried one more time to convince Vaniir to show an ounce of compassion. Unsurprisingly, the prick didn't have so much as a single kind word for either of them.

Too bad, indeed. Vaniir deserved to watch his own body melt away.

* * *

 

For the first time in a month, Tifa ventured outside of the city limits. Looking up at its towering columns and artificial, mesa-like tiers, she marveled at how, despite having all the flaws of Midgar's slums, the place as a whole looked like a colossal temple. Cluster 100, the Amyntasi called it, or so she'd heard. Supposedly, they didn't name their cities. In a way, the government managed the whole world just like ShinRa, designating numbered sectors rather than meaningful or historical names.

Other than that and slum life, Tifa hadn't had the time to learn much more. For now, just getting by was a full-time job.

She welcomed the cleanliness of the flatlands, and the beauty of two of Amyntas' three moons, hanging low in the mid-morning sky. It was the same scenery she'd grown comfortable with while living under Mirnu and Saillyo's roof. And for once, the wind didn't make her want to hold her breath, carrying only benign, grassy scents. If Tifa really wanted to, she could walk away from Cluster 100, and never look back. Maybe she could find a smaller town somewhere? Tifa moaned, remembering all too quickly the advantage of the slums. In such an ugly and perverse place, it wasn't difficult at all to sell people on the story that she was deformed, but still one of their own. Considering how put-off the average Cluster citizens had been at her mere appearance, Tifa feared that not only would she stand out more where it was less populated, but that her cover would be blown, and that by association, her original hosts would be in danger.

Besides, even if throttling Vaniir was more or less out of the question, Neyli needed a friend. Maybe, in time, the knowledge that she wasn't alone anymore would push the woman to stand up for herself. Tifa snorted, incredulous of those thoughts, ready to argue with herself. She might be embittered, ashamed, traumatized, and who knew what else, but she was still the same person she'd always been. Long before Neyli could ever hope to gather the courage, Tifa would probably act for her. Vaniir was walking on dangerously thin ice; Tifa wasn't going to remain conflicted forever. Whatever happened to her in consequence was negligible when compared to the needs of an innocent-a true innocent, if such a person existed. At any rate, Neyli wasn't malicious, and she needed help.

Nevertheless, Tifa still banked her hopes on Vaniir's grotesque lifestyle. If she and Neyli were lucky, the man would finish himself off before their respective situations with him degraded any further.

Forcing her dysfunctional neighbors out of her mind, Tifa set out toward the north, to find these so-called "stampeding plains-birds". The only kind of bird she'd ever seen flocking together  _and_  stampeding were wild chocobos. If these plains-birds were anything like chocobos, they were worth a lot more to her than their feathers. They might also be edible, and good as swift transports. Walking everywhere was getting very, very old. Now that she came to think of it, the Amyntasi were oddly immobile, from what she'd seen so far. It didn't make any sense. Everywhere she'd roamed, her encounters with monsters and other predators had been incredibly rare.

_"It appears that the Amyntasi do not cannibalize their world. The grasses are lush, even at the city's edge. Perhaps there are restrictions on moving to prevent damaging the land?"_ Nanaki suggested.

"That's a nice thought, but I'm not so sure," Tifa responded, settling into a normal conversation. Alone, she didn't have to worry about who might see her and question why she was talking to apparently no one. "I don't like how some people are treated here. I don't really know enough, but it reminds me a little of how the ShinRa was."

_"It is...odd,"_  Nanaki agreed. For a moment, Tifa could feel him hesitating.  _"Tifa, what do you intend to do with that ghastly Vaniir?"_

Groaning, Tifa stopped, and scuffed her shoes against the unpaved road, sending up a small spray of gravel. "As little as I need to, I guess. I want to help Neyli, but Vaniir's going to have to give me no other choice. This world scares me enough, Nanaki. I'm not in a rush to find out what their prison system is like."

_"Unfortunate, but fair enough,"_ Nanaki acquiesced, and receded into her subconscious.

Ahead, Tifa heard a low rumble. The pebbles at her feet hopped and trembled. Shielding her eyes from the sun's glare with one hand, she tried to peer further into the distance. Behind a smoky wall of dust, she caught a glimpse of beaked faces with long, sandy brown, feathered necks craning forward, charging at full speed.

"Uh...I don't think this is going to work!" Tifa sang to herself, while quickly veering to one side, moving out of their way.

There was no way she was going to be able to get within ten feet of one of those animals, let alone trying to topple one or more of them for their feathers! Maybe they looked and acted enough like chocobos, but these birds were monstrous! An average Gaian chocobo was about a foot or two taller than her; these creatures were two and three times her height! If they socialized more like chocobos, and didn't run with tens and hundreds of companions, Tifa might have stood a chance of hunting and killing one, but the very-rightly named stampeding plains-birds' defense was nigh unbreakable. Why bother stalking one, when they were all tall enough to see her coming from most directions, and would probably crush her underfoot the moment she tried to leap? She estimated that only an elephant gun could hope to bring these guys down, and that the shot would have to come from a distance to avoid being trampled when the blast spooked all the others. But it was a moot point, because her know-how with any guns was next to nothing, let alone trying to shoot down big game properly. Where in this world could she even get a hold of such a weapon?

Tifa scowled. She was going to have to return to Vaniir empty-handed. The filthy man probably knew damn well what these birds were like. For all she knew, sending her into their path was a lazy effort on his part to get rid of her. If she'd been caught in the stampede, would anyone have really questioned it? "Have you heard? Some mentally deficient wench from the slums wandered out, and died in a run-in with the plains-birds. Too bad, so sad. No one really knew her..." Yes, whoever was in charge of investigating her death, if anyone aside from Vaniir and Neyli took note, would probably say something like that.

_"Shit, Tifa!_   _If that ain't one fucked up way to look at it, "_ Cid protested.

Bowing her head, Tifa conceded, "Yeah, it is. But...it's probably the truth. I don't know if I can afford to believe anything else-not until I'm doing more than just scraping by."

* * *

 

After a full day of circling the city aimlessly, Tifa crept back into the Cluster under the cover of darkness. Only one of Amyntas' three moons was up, granting her a few more reliable shadows to mask her return. Because she had nothing to give him, she had decided to wait until it was late enough for Vaniir to have gone comatose from whatever illicit plant, animal, or drink he'd chosen to imbibe this time. A red, slimy, globular moss that grew in sewers was his favorite. Supposedly, it brought on strong hallucinations, followed by a sound, deep sleep. Tifa hoped he was in the mood for it this evening. Regretfully, Neyli sometimes joined him, but it was probably best that they both be asleep when she arrived.

Heeding extra caution, Tifa decided to wait a little longer before returning to her shack. Until then, she skulked around one of the slums' landfills, quietly picking through constructive wastes for anything she might use. Granted, night was the worst time to do this. She couldn't always make out where the sharp, rusty edges and broken glass were. Still, it was preferable to coming here when Vaniir was expecting her to hand over anything good. The sooner she gathered enough supplies to connect her pathetic little tin shed of a home to the city's sewers and aqueducts, the sooner she could stop pretending she was that bastard's slave. She'd already managed to find a suitable tub and sink. They were more like a huge metal barrel and a dented bucket, but they were water-tight and sturdy.

When a dull ache began to throb behind her eyes and in her temples, Tifa surmised that searching with almost no light and breathing in the dumps' vile stench were starting to get to her. Only somewhat irrationally, she found herself blaming it on Vaniir. When was the last time she'd come to hate another person so quickly? Tifa's breath caught in her throat for the obvious answer, and she nearly choked on it. That was the wrong question to ask; the wrong comparison to draw, but it was too late. Her heart was already racing, and her eyes were already straining against the flood of tears she held in reserve for that one memory. Thoughts like this always came out of nowhere, and there was never a way to prepare for how they'd get to her.

"I don't want to think about it, I don't want to know it," Tifa chanted through her teeth, trying desperately to soothe herself.

Anything, anything, she would give to push thoughts of that one away. It was one thing when she recalled his name of her own free will, but when something coincidentally reminded her like this, she could barely handle it. Mercifully, the tension in her head worsened, distracting her. The pain was damn near nauseating, but it was a price she was more than willing to pay. Feeling so ill meant she had more of a reason to go home than she did to keep working. Cocooning with her ripped up curtains and salty-smelling bedroll was suddenly quite appealing.

She'd only found a few solid pipes, but they were better than nothing; they still meant she'd made progress. Cradling them against her chest, Tifa jogged the few blocks between the landfill and her shack. As she drew near, she slowed to a tip-toe, not allowing Vaniir and Neyli's house to leave her line of sight. Their lights were all off, but that didn't necessarily mean she was in the clear. Depending on what drug they'd taken, they could be lounging in the pitch dark, wide awake and enjoying-or suffering from-a massive trip that the absence of light greatly intensified.

_"My friend, the fates are cruel,"_ Genesis whispered abruptly; harshly.

Closing in on her front door, Tifa narrowed her eyes, searching for what had prompted Genesis' sudden recital. Then, only inches away from the entrance, her foot met with a limp, heavy, unyielding resistance. The unexpected barricade made Tifa fumble the treasures she'd gathered from the dump, and they slipped from her slick, sweaty hands, clattering to the sidewalk. Shaking, she knelt down, fixated on the two bodies, which were heaped one on top of the other. Dark, black and ash-colored inflammations coated their arms, chests, and legs. Oily slime still seeped from Vaniir's mouth, and out of Neyli's ears. Their eyes were stuck wide open, preserving the shock in which they'd perished.

From their expressions, she could tell they hadn't seen or felt it coming—it had just emerged from within their bodies suddenly and killed.

Tifa began to hyperventilate, panicked. Blocking her door-two Geostigma victims, her neighbors, were blocking her door. Why did they have to do  _this_? They didn't, really. She would get Vaniir whatever he needed. Didn't he understand that by now? He didn't need to pull something like this. And Neyli-Of course Tifa was planning on helping her! She was! Wasn't this kind of cry for help a little extreme? But they were dead, and they were blocking her door, bleeding out black ooze, while all Tifa wanted was to go in and rest, and stop, stop,  _stop_  thinking about it!

Between her pounding, burning head and corpses at her feet, she couldn't hold back anymore. Tifa turned away and vomited.

 


	3. Denial

Playing the final act of a murderer, Tifa buried Neyli and Vaniir in a shallow grave she'd spent most of the night digging within the walls of her own shack. When the ground inside was as smooth and untouched as she could force it to appear, she loaded her one-roomed home with all of her gleaned building supplies and topped it off with random garbage until the pile nearly touched the ceiling. Finally, she pulled sheets of metal down from the walls outside, making it look like nothing more than another common trash heap. She would no longer need that tiny place that barely shielded her from the elements. As long as she could ignore how her neighbors had died, or that they'd died at all, their house was as good as hers.

As she worked, Tifa devised a little tale she could tell herself every time she thought of them: Vaniir and Neyli were away, taking care of whatever unclean business Vaniir had concocted this time. In an unexpectedly gracious, likely drug-influenced move, they'd allowed her to watch their house. No, she had no clue when they'd be back, and neither did they, but until then, she'd be more than happy to keep the place clean and take care of their pet-something. What in the world was that thing? It looked absolutely nothing like any creature or mutant she'd seen on Gaia.

"Well, hopefully they're not gone for too long," Tifa quietly complained to herself, affirming her lie. "I still have a lot of work to do. I've been so busy, and my house is a disaster area."

_"...At least it will be more comfortable,"_ Cloud agreed.

Tifa exhaled in relief. She hadn't heard from her friends since last night, when she'd found-that is, since Neyli and Vaniir had departed, and she'd found the keys to their house in her hands. For a little while, she'd have uninhibited access to food, water, and a clean place to sleep. Or at least, it would be clean once she found the time to straighten the place up. Vaniir had always been such a slob. But she wouldn't get rained on through a leaky ceiling or wake up to find some disgusting, unidentified insect crawling in her hair or creeping down through her clothes. Perhaps her friends were simply shocked that her luck had turned for the better so suddenly? Tifa couldn't say she blamed them for not knowing what to say. Things were seriously looking up, weren't they?

Smiling and gently humming to herself, Tifa unlocked her neighbors' front door, and slipped inside. A solid floor, similar to laminate, clicked beneath her feet with each step, a welcomed change to her usual, bare-earth accommodations. Before her, the trash-laden living room offered one acceptably clean spot: a soft, plush couch just perfect for napping on. The mere sight of it made Tifa release a monster yawn so forceful her jaw cracked.

"Oh, goodnight," she mumbled to no one.

But there was a problem. Someone had beat her to it. The room was filled with smoke or haze, and someone was lounging right where she intended to fall comatose. He was brazen as ever, sitting carelessly, stretched out and enjoying the very spot she so desperately needed. Genesis always barged in like this, though, startling her to make sure he had her attention. Some day in the very distant future, she might learn to ignore him, or so she could only pray.

Taking a step back, Tifa steadied herself against the wall behind her. Genesis, Cloud, and the others only ever interfered so directly with her daily life when she was either about to take too great of a risk, or when, sadly, she was beginning to crack under the stress of all she'd endured. Genesis was particularly intolerant of her more severe mental slip-ups. The lie she'd just chosen to believe in was still so fresh, his arrival made her strain against compulsively recalling what had really happened.

Languidly, Genesis flipped a page in the hard-bound copy of LOVELESS he always carried, pretending to ignore her.

Tifa sighed and crossed her arms, waiting for him to say his piece. It just wasn't Genesis unless he made some kind of entrance or put on his obligatory melodramatic act. His intros were very effective, though; they had an annoying way of completely disarming and distracting her from whatever charade she was trying to keep up.

At last, he closed the book and peered up at her. Gesturing around the room with one hand, he commented, "Was there not a parasitic couple taking up residence here only last night? As I recall, you'd been quite adamant about avoiding them. Remind me again, Tifa: Where have Neyli and Vaniir gone?"

Squirming inside, Tifa bowed her head to avoid Genesis' piercing glare, intent on breathing life into the new reality she'd chosen. "They...they ran into me last night when I got back. Actually, it was more like I ran into them, just outside my door. That's when they gave me their keys. They didn't really say how long they'd be gone or even where they were going, but I kind of got the feeling it would be a while. I can only hope they don't get wrapped up in anything too reckless but knowing them…I guess I just have to do my best to take care of things for them in the meantime."

"How fascinating they couldn't share their destination. Are you certain they didn't?" Genesis pushed.

"I don't know where they went!" Tifa insisted, a panicky edge creeping into her voice. If there was one thing she couldn't bear right now, and one thing she didn't have the patience for, it was having to face a surprise interrogation by someone who wasn't going anywhere until he got the answers he wanted.

Genesis stood and paced to peer out the window. Dim light seeped through the curtains when he pushed them aside, briefly brightening the whole room. "Fair enough, I suppose. I have to wonder why you chose not to sleep last night, however. Between your unsuccessful hunting journey outside the Cluster and your late-night scavenging, you should have been exhausted, no?"

"...I am, actually. Before you showed up, I was heading to bed. Now, it looks like I'm going to have to waste the whole day sleeping. We can talk about it later," Tifa tried, mustering the most put- off tone she could.

Genesis smirked and peered almost playfully out of the one eye his bangs didn't veil. "Allow us both a more accurate account of what happened, and I'll gladly take my leave."

Tifa lowered herself to the floor and held her head in her hands. What really happened? She'd already decided she wasn't going there. Pretending not to remember much of what had transpired on Gaia most of the time is what made it possible for her to live her day-in, day-out life without totally losing her mind. Why didn't Genesis understand that? Last night's true events had brought every accursed detail back, right up until she'd finished burying the evidence, and simply decided that no such thing had occurred. To change her mind-no. Just no. She couldn't handle it. She wouldn't.

A wistful half-smile later, she answered him, "I'm sorry, Genesis, but I don't really remember anything. I'm not so sure I want to, either."

"But you will, eventually, and whoever serves to remind you may not respect your wishes as we have thus far," Genesis pointedly warned.

"'Thus far?' What's that supposed to mean?"

"You are a vessel for the Goddess, Tifa. Your very life has become a dangerous anomaly that only she can support. If it is not in her best interest for you to continue supplanting the truth, then you won't."

Tifa felt her pulse double, and her stomach clenched painfully. A thick shadow covered the room, and in it, she beheld the Goddess of Gaia for the first time in over a year. Minerva had changed. Gone were her torn clothes, scars, and bent armor. In their place, she wore only her tiara and a simple white dress, lined and plated with cerulean and gold trim. Soft, aquamarine wisps of Gaia's remaining clean Lifestream flowed around her, and Tifa thought she could hear the sound of her friends' conversing voices drifting within them. But most ominous was the gargantuan bow the Goddess clutched her right hand, composed entirely of her former combat gear. And in her left, what Tifa had once thought was some kind of holy staff, she now understood was its arrow.

The Goddess was fully prepared to rain down her wrath on whosoever she would, and although it made little sense, Tifa was tempted to believe that she was the next target. But all she received was a subtle nod of Minvera's head, judging Genesis' words true, and a small voice that she felt more than heard, repeating,  _"The doors must remain open henceforth…the doors must remain open…"_

In that instant, the events of the previous night flooded back into Tifa's consciousness with sharp and merciless clarity. Vaniir and Neyli had died sudden, violent, and all-too-familiar Geostigma deaths, the implications of which were grim at best. Geostigma was a Gaian problem to the best of Tifa's knowledge, and here she was, clandestinely carrying the last of her world's souls and its deity. The only ones that had contracted the illness were people on whom she'd actually  _wished it._  Not that she'd really wished anything upon Neyli aside from escape, but it was too easy to write her off as a casualty of bad karma or some force like it.

"She's not a host, is she?" Tifa asked Genesis, slowly recovering from her vision, unable to staunch a few long-held tears. "Am I?"

What if Sephiroth had only allowed her to escape because either she or the Goddess carried some kind of dormant variety of his Geostigma virus?

"No, but this world may have its own lingering rot. As self-proclaimed defender of the Promised Land, Amyntas may have encountered Jenova long before she came to Gaia. Not to offend, but I should think that Sephiroth's presence would be stronger felt than two inconsequential slum rats laying dead at their neighbor's door."

Inconsequential-Tifa had no problem thinking of Vaniir that way, but not Neyli. Neyli had helped her survive in this strange place, and to her own harm. Yet, she understood what Genesis was implying. To Sephiroth, just those two strangers would mean practically nothing. He would have gone much, much further.

Unless he was hell-bent on communicating something specifically to her.

Tifa shook her head, trying to rid herself of that idea. It was ridiculous! What could such a message possibly be?  _'Your most foul wish is my command?'_  There was no point in that. If he found her, he probably wouldn't spare a moment for trivial mind games this time around. She was certain that Sephiroth's prime target at this point would have to be Minerva. If he acted on any kind of sound logic, he'd just go in for the kill and take what he believed was destined to become his all along. After that, with his deification complete, all he'd have left to accomplish would be a quick interstellar walk to the Promised Land. Why waste time toying with her?

"I need to be more careful what I wish for, huh?" Tifa said.

"To the contrary, I'd pay much less attention to petty coincidences, and more to the world you're in. You can't truly believe that not a single one of these people suspects your true origins. Human they may not be, but their nature is very much the same. With death literally on your doorstep, you'd make an easy scapegoat for anyone who wishes to strike at the unfamiliar to maintain a false sense of security," Genesis explained.

"But-!" Tifa started to argue, but he was gone. She groaned and yawned, finally flopping down onto the couch. "Just come and go whenever you want, Genesis! So long as you have the last word, right?"

She wasn't buying into Genesis' theory that her neighbors' Geostigma deaths were just some kind of ironic coincidence. Even if Jenova had touched Amyntas once upon a time, that would have been over two thousand years ago! For Geostigma to surface right here and now, when she was around, and right when she'd foolishly wished for it just felt too calculated. Someone had to have made it happen, and the options for the culprit's identity were rather limited. The only way not blaming anyone specific could make sense was if the virus had evolved into some kind of intelligence on its own, or more likely, had copied from other life forms around it. That was more or less how Jenova worked, wasn't it? Whether physiologically or psychologically, even the smallest cellular components of Jenova's being could mimic whatever they needed to for survival's sake.

Curling up tightly into herself, Tifa had a sudden realization: No matter how small, basic, or disparate, anything that had once been part of Jenova followed one driving force alone- "Reunion...Oh no..."

If Genesis was correct, and Amyntas had indeed suffered an ancient run-in with Jenova, then either the creature herself, or more likely, the man who carried on her legacy, would certainly feel drawn to this planet.

Amyntas was not a place of refuge. Quite possibly, it was a glaring beacon in the darkness of space for Sephiroth to come and ravage. If he harnessed the Jenova plague that apparently still lingered here, this world could fall to him as well. What if his proximity to Amyntas was close enough that it triggered the virus to awaken? The way Neyli and Vaniir had died-It was meant for her to see. If not, they would have died in bed or on their front porch; not on her front doorstep in a neat pile! Tifa was certain of that now, even if the virus was only copying from Sephiroth's past memories and motives of constantly targeting those around her.

Tifa trembled and buried her face into the arm of the couch, letting it soak up her damp, uneven breaths.

_"Tifa, we don't know for sure yet,"_ Cloud gently whispered in the back of her mind. He continued to speak, trying to soothe her, but to no avail. She could hear him, but her mind was too loud to make out the rest of his words.

She settled on doing the only thing she could for now and wept herself to sleep.

* * *

 

Tifa didn't wake up until late evening, and for the most part, she was relieved to have slept the day away. Night was quiet, and blissfully devoid of small children, teen-aged delinquents, and old ladies; in other words, the typical snoops and shameless point-and-starers. Usually, she didn't take it very personally, but after entombing her neighbors in her old makeshift house and being forced to undergo a nerve-wracking epiphany about how safe this world wasn't, she was happy to do without the normal gawking-fest.

What she did have to cope with right away was waking up to find that Vaniir and Neyli's former pet had curled up on her stomach and drooled generously while they both slept. The translucent goop was thin enough that Tifa was able to flick most of it off with a swipe of her palm, but she'd have to scrub the remaining stickiness.

"Ugh, nice to see you too," Tifa groaned at the still-unidentified creature. "What are you, anyway?"

Tifa wracked her brain, trying to remember the name or word she'd heard Neyli call a few times, to which the animal seemed to respond. Peylo? Palla? Palylio! That was it!

Palylio, for lack of a better way to think of it, looked to her like a toy-maker's disastrous accident with left over plush parts that had somehow come to life. It had a dog-like face, complete with a long snout, but the tubular body of a medium snake. Yet, even Palylio's long torso managed to grow a luxuriously soft, forest green fur coat. How the thing was so agile with a mismatched body like that, Tifa could only guess. She supposed the creature was still sort of cute, in an acquired taste sense of the word.

"At least I already have a pretty good idea of what to feed you, Palylio," Tifa announced with a grimace. She'd probably already tasted some of it for herself. "Never saw you outside with Neyli, so you probably have a litter box or something like that around here…But, let's get some air first."

Distracting her mind from the distress she'd fallen asleep with was fast proving futile. The living room felt like it was contracting; the walls closing in on her with every half-held breath. Hurriedly, Tifa escaped to the kitchen, and scanned the ceiling for the small hatch that Vaniir had installed. He'd claimed that's where he was going to build the stairs when he finished the second story, but he'd never really gotten started on any construction. The small stepladder that he and Neyli had used to access their roof was still there, though.

Tifa wasted no time in hopping up and throwing the hatch open. While it would have been quicker simply to use the front door, just going outside wasn't enough. She wanted to be elevated, where she could keep watch for anything and everything, just like the plains birds she'd seen yesterday.

On the roof, she basked in the cool dusk air. The slums' normal rancid odors had settled to a mere undertone by now, so she indulged in a deep breath. Aside from Vaniir and Neyli's suspicious deaths, what did she really have to go on? What did she really know? Jumping at every frightening thought or menacing shadow was getting her nowhere really fast. At best, she'd wind up validating some of the Amyntasis' suspicion that she was mentally ill or deficient after all. She didn't need her cover to be that secure.

The universe was a huge place, Tifa reminded herself. Jenova was outright ancient, having possibly visited and scarred numerous worlds over several millennia. If each one she hadn't ended still possessed some piece of her, how many worlds would Sephiroth have to absorb before he came for Amyntas?

"How long before he comes for me?" Tifa finally let herself ask, because she knew he would. Minerva was within her, so his coming was unavoidable.

Inside, her friends were perfectly still and silent, but Tifa could feel them watching her, waiting to see how completely she'd be able to embrace the grim details of her reality. They'd all been incredibly patient with her. Even Genesis, with his brash and often uncouth ways of stepping in to hog-tie her to her own sanity, had been gentle with her when it came to the full scope of the truth. He'd never let her deny what was right in front of her, but he'd given her some rational ways to side-step dealing with the sum of her circumstances all at once. Although he'd presented it as a reason why Sephiroth probably wasn't directly responsible for Vaniir and Neyli's fatal Geostigma, without Genesis' revelation that Amyntas might have battled Jenova long ago, she would have been a lot less receptive to believing that he was probably en route.

Of course, Cloud had always been there too. He usually appeared when the loneliness of knowing that she was the last human being alive became too oppressive. Or, more appropriately, when having no living friends or family she could safely count on became too depressing. Sometimes, his visits turned counterproductive. Any time she wanted to hold him left Tifa with a stark reminder that although Cloud was alive in the sense of being conscious, his body had long ago perished. He and all of her friends were just ghosts, separate from Minerva as individuals strictly to uphold her morale and stability as the Goddess' vessel.

Why didn't Minerva continue to the Promised Land? Tifa exhaled very slowly and sat down on the concrete roof before admitting her next thought, "It's not like I can ever enjoy my life again. Not even surviving really seems worth it."

No, she wasn't suicidal; it was more like she was resigned. Tifa felt she still had enough willpower to keep living, but if Minerva decided that today was the day they'd head into the heart of the universe and dissolve into the Promised Land, she was ready. It was the best death she could possibly hope for, and even something of a privilege for someone who was only a shoddy surrogate for Omega, not to mention partially responsible for her world's demise.

" _We're still here because the Goddess' work isn't finished yet, Tifa. As long as Sephiroth is still out there, our home isn't safe. If he steals the spirit energy from enough worlds, he can conquer the Promised Land too,"_ Aerith finally explained.

Tifa's mouth dropped slightly. Her initial assumptions about the Goddess' motivations had been completely off base. None of this had ever been about survival. Minerva actually meant to make it her—no, their—mission to protect the source of all life. The Goddess that Sephiroth had so handily defeated came to Amyntas not to hide, but to heal and regroup so she could take him on again! Minerva's world was little more than a memory, but she still intended to fight.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Tifa cried out.

Passing by on the street below, a stumbling drunkard mocked her sudden outburst in a slurred falsetto, "'You'ff got to be kidding me!' Ha ha! Nope, not kidding at all, ya dumb bitch, an' I got two more bottles here to prove it…hic!"

Tifa rolled her eyes and groaned. Yet another universal truth was that no matter the planet or species, lone male drunkards down on their luck were frequently misogynistic attention whores. Thus, the man below was naturally very protective of his booze. Ironically, his announcement that he had two could just as easily be a harsh offer. Right now, Tifa wasn't entirely opposed to the idea of a strong drink to take the edge off.

"Oh yeah? Why don't you throw one up here? I could use some convincing!" she hollered back.

The lush howled at her absurd suggestion, and made a lewd gesture, bending and flexing the fourth joint of his index finger—the Amyntasi equivalent of flipping someone off.

"Yeah, no thanks," Tifa recoiled, and the man continued onward in his stumbling path, still cackling.

Just as he regained enough of his bearings to walk in something resembling a straight line, gunfire ricocheted off the building two doors down the road, jolting him into a sprint that failed miserably after four or five yards. Face planted on the sidewalk, the drunk's two bottles rolled out of his pants. One of them burst, spilling out into the street, unleashing a slew of expletives from its former owner.

"Heheh! Looks like he only got one, Teef!"

At the sound of that voice, Tifa's intoxicated visitor quickly faded into the background of her awareness. Looking up from the pathetic sight, she saw that everything else matched. His bulky build, his dark and grizzled face, his signature gun arm—there was no mistaking who had just appeared across the street. She knew she shouldn't accept him without question. There were too many reasons why he shouldn't be there, but she'd been essentially alone for over a year.

"Barret!"

Vaulting over the edge of the roof, Tifa barely managed to keep her footing when she landed. But that didn't stop her from running to meet Barret and tackling him in a merciless bear hug.

After an awkward split second, he reciprocated, tossing his good arm around her shoulders. "Musta been a long time," he chuckled.

"You could say that," Tifa carefully affirmed, stepping back. She would have to bring it up eventually, but there was just no right way to ask, 'Why aren't you dead like I thought?' For now, she settled on, "Why don't you come inside? I was just about to make dinner, and we a have  _a lot_  of catching up to do," instead.

* * *

 

For as unkempt some parts of their house were, Tifa was relieved to find nothing with legs or antennae while she rummaged through Neyli and Vaniir's kitchen. Without any nasty surprises, it was much easier to pretend she was simply looking for ingredients and making decisions. In reality, she didn't have the foggiest clue where everything was, if they even had what she needed, and if enough of it was edible for her to prepare. Letting Barret in on the complexity of her situation right away felt too risky. She needed to figure out what was up with him first.

How had he made it all the way here, to Amyntas? How had he even known where to go? Why hadn't his Geostigma killed him and forced him to join with Sephiroth's Lifestream like it had done to everyone else?

Tifa inspected Barret through the corner of her eye. The spot on his arm that should have been infected, gangrenous, and melting was now perfectly clean. While much of his spontaneity and vigor remained, some of the basic idiosyncrasies of his personality and the person she once knew only appeared as if by prompt. When the passing drunk had insulted her, he was quick to jump to her assistance, much like he used to back in her first Seventh Heaven bar in Midgar, before he understood she was a fighter as well. But now that he'd found a comfortable seat at the kitchen table, he was quiet. The Barret she knew always had something to say, even if only in the form of cranky grumbling or sleep-talking the whole house could hear. Tifa fondly recalled how they had to postpone one or two AVALANCHE scouting operations because of it. No one ever slept too well when Barret was on edge.

Yet, the man behind her had nothing to share, even after a full year apart. He was completely content with blankly staring at his reflection in the metal surface of his gun arm. His entire personality just seemed off.

Pursing her lips, Tifa returned to the task before her. It wasn't like she hadn't seen this kind of thing before. Years ago, when she'd first run into Cloud at the train station in Midgar, he was the same—only able to act like his real self or something passing for it when someone prompted or reminded him. And of course, that was all Jenova's doing; something which Sephiroth used to exploit Cloud. It wasn't all bad news, though. Maybe, just maybe, Barret's Geostigma had run its course, and his head was still a bit scrambled from the recovery process? If anyone was strong and stubborn enough to pull off an unaided, one-man fight with the same sickness that ruined Gaia, Barret would have to be that person.

What was it he used to say?  _'There ain't no gettin' offa this train we on!'_

" _Sounds about right to me! That son of bitch wouldn't go out without firing everything he had on him,"_  Cid agreed.

" _It would still be wise to exercise caution, Tifa. Even if Barret is himself, Sephiroth might be able to manipulate him,"_ Nanaki warned.

Tifa pulled two cans of fruit from the cupboard, silently replying,  _"With Cloud, I had no idea what was going on or what to expect. It's not like that now. I'll keep an eye on Barret, too. Maybe I can still help him."_

Although Cloud had nothing to add, Tifa could feel his discomfort. Whether Barret was dead, alive, or somewhere in between didn't matter to him. The prospect of watching an old friend crack the same way he had couldn't be anything but unsettling. Cloud's restrained disapproval prickled along the back of her neck like pins; to him, it was even worse that she'd chosen to take the same level of responsibility for Barret as she had for him. If she could truly read his mind, Tifa was almost positive she'd find a knotted heap of questions about how knowing most of what was going on was supposed to help when she had no practical solutions to the problem.

True, her resolve had lifted somewhat when Barret appeared, but Tifa couldn't help but share some of Cloud's concern. She was only making the same choice to watch over Barret because he was a friend; anything less was unconscionable. Even knowing or suspecting what she did about his mental malfunction, the best she could really do was to play it all by ear.

Maybe it would help to be a little more investigative this time? She'd too often caved into fear where Cloud was concerned. But sadly, she didn't have nearly as much—if anything—to lose this time. Being afraid of what she'd find would be nothing but a waste of time. Steeling her nerves, Tifa decided that now was the best time to broach the topic with Barret. Her situation was already too precarious without waiting to figure out what parts of Barret were broken or missing.

"Sorry I'm taking so long, Barret. I just got moved in, so nothing's where it should be. This used to be so much easier with Marlene around. She was a great help…I really miss her," she apologized, faltering slightly when she forced herself to bring up Marlene.

Barret lifted his head, stretching his arms and yawning, "No problem, Tifa. Your cooking's always been worth waiting. Marlene a good friend of yours?"

Tifa grimaced and bit back on a stinging urge to burst into tears right then and there, swallowing the lump in her throat. Staying casual was killing her already! Of all the people and places he could have forgotten, she'd never have guessed that Marlene would be one of them. She was such a pivotal, significant part of who Barret was! She was his drive for anything and everything he ever did. At times, she'd been his reason to keep living at all—the reason why he didn't wind up like his old friend, Dyne.

"Yeah, we were really close. She was a lot younger than me, but she made a wonderful little sister. People mistook her for my daughter, but she never corrected them…Actually, she was the adopted daughter of another very good friend. I'm surprised that you don't remember her," Tifa managed, pushing herself to turn around and look Barret in the eye. "She was around all the time."

"Kinda funny I don't, but we was up against ShinRa back then. They was some crazy times, Tifa," Barret excused.

She nodded and paused to focus on selecting a few spices to throw in with the fruit she'd opened. Dinner was going to be very, very light, but having just occupied the place, a makeshift spicy fruit salad would pass. "I remember that, too," Tifa agreed. "We always had to be sure we knew what we were fighting for. We never knew when ShinRa might catch us, or when the casualties would feel like too many. I struggled with that for a long time, once the Planet was safe. From them, anyway…"

When she set Barret's bowl in front of him, he was staring into space, so deeply lost in thought, like there was something he just couldn't piece together, but the key to it was just barely out of his reach. He squinted his eyes, and a soft, perturbed groan rumbled in his throat.

"Barret?" Tifa tried, but he only shook his head slightly, trapped in his stupor.

Cautiously, she sat down adjacent to him, and took a bite of her meal. The fruit tasted somewhat like the can it had come from, but it was definitely better than pet food or garbage. Tifa picked at it slowly, hoping Barret would come to and say something.

After several long, dragged-out minutes, Barret finally shook off his trance and dug into his dinner. He ate ravenously, as if it was the first thing he'd tasted in ages. When done with shoveling the chunks into his mouth, he picked up the bowl and slurped up every drop of juice left. Then, at last, wiping his mouth clean with his good hand, he grumbled, "I ain't supposed to be here, am I?"

Tifa loosely hugged herself, casting her eyes down to stare at her knees. "I don't know, Barret. What happened to you?"

"Heh…Seems like I remember dying. And then there was a long time, jes' waiting and forgetting about life. Kinda like bein' in a prison or hospital. Real boring. Nothin' to do but wait until you're told what to do," Barret revealed.

" _Tifa, be on your guard,"_ Genesis abruptly cut in.

"Seems like?" Tifa asked, her stomach instantly dropping with Genesis' warning.

"Yeah, I was real weak, all covered in some kinda black shit. Then, there was the waiting…Can't say how I got here, though." Slowly, Barret lifted his head. "This—this ain't me. Can't be…I ain't me, Tifa!"

Suddenly, Barret jumped to his feet, staring with bewilderment at his gun arm. His nostrils flared as he began to hyperventilate, and his eyes wildly flickered back and forth between his weapon and her until finally, he took aim.

"Barret," Tifa numbly pronounced, rising and backing away from the table, "I know none of this makes sense. I'm kind of lost, too. Why don't we just talk a little more? We can try to figure it out together, right?"

"Sorry Teef. Just doin' what I gotta do," he panted, and popped off a few sloppily aimed shots. "I gotta do what I been told to do, cause you got the last ones…"

Throwing herself to the floor to avoid Barret's attack, Tifa heard the bullets penetrate the cupboards behind her, shattering the dishes inside. Before her, Barret hefted the table up with his good arm and tossed it aside, depriving her of its meager cover. The only way she was going to make it out of this alive was if she could at least disarm him before he had the chance to shoot again.

But then, awkwardly, Barret stomped toward her, raising and lowering his gun. Confusion and frustration played across his face, and Tifa wondered if, among so many other things, he'd also forgotten how to control his prosthesis. Pointing it at her wasn't a problem, but how to make it fire when he wanted it to was completely lost on him.

She chose that instant to jump. Her right arm quickly made contact with Barret's thick neck, hooking around it, and she used her full weight to send him tumbling to the floor. As he fell, Tifa moved out of his path just in time to see that there wasn't enough room. The back of his head smacked against the stone wall, resounding with a sickening crunch upon impact, knocking him out cold.

Fresh, dark blood had splattered and was already dribbling down the wall, forming a pool below his head in a gory halo. Tifa covered her mouth and willed herself not to react until she got a closer look. Kneeling down beside him, she carefully lifted his head. Fluid still rushed out of the back of his skull as though someone was pouring it from a bucket. The substance was not blood at all, but the tell-tale black pus of Geostigma. Looking over her shoulder when she heard something rustle, Tifa saw that his whole body was slowly melting away into the dark, infectious sludge.

" _He was just broken memories, being used,"_ Aerith murmured.

" _Like a Jenova copy, but not,"_ Zack added his rough assessment.

Tifa shook off her friends' voices. Memories? Copies? What was any of that really supposed to mean? There was no making sense of this! Why did he act like he had to kill her, and what did he mean when he said she had the last ones? The last ones of what?

Before she could overwhelm herself with questions, the front door crashed open, and four black-clad Cluster policemen filed in. Tifa stood at attention, and started to plead for their help, but it was no use. One of them restrained her arms, while another wasted no time taking samples from Barret's body. The other two picked through the house, recording notes into electronic devices on their wrists. Frightened, Palylio slithered out of his hiding place in search for a better one, but one of the officers quickly collected the animal.

Too much. She'd made too much noise, acted too suspiciously, and too many people were dying around her. Even here in the slums, it all eventually had to get a little too creepy for the neighbors to stomach. Barret's gunfire had probably been the last straw for someone to make the call, along with the sudden, overnight destruction of her shanty house. Genesis had been right. People had noticed her, and not for the better.

The officer behind her gave her a light shove, and she cooperatively marched toward the door. Upon exiting, Tifa gawked at the sheer number of Cluster authorities waiting outside. They acted like they'd been expecting some very serious resistance from her, and it wasn't immediately obvious why.

But then, casting side-long glance at her old home, she saw what had earned her so much commotion: The same black ichor that Barret had bled was bubbling up from the ground around a now-dismantled scrap pile. They'd discovered Vaniir and Neyli.

 


	4. Trial and Error

Her prison cell was probably the most sterile place Tifa had slept since she'd crashed into this world. Aside from the obligatory latrine, the entire floor was covered in a soft, white padding, allowing her to sprawl out and relax wherever she pleased. What did it say of her, that she'd slept so soundly and dreamlessly in a place like this? Maybe nothing, or maybe that she was exhausted. She hadn't been mistreated. If anything, her captors seemed to take a small amount of pity on her.

Upon their arrival to this place, which she guessed was some kind of judiciary center, the Cluster police had assigned her fresh uniform clothes, escorted her to a showering room, and waited patiently for her to bathe, making no demands that she should hurry. Then, they'd inquired what kinds of food she could tolerate, and fed her accordingly. After all of that, they'd simply led her up several stories to this plain cell and told her to rest up for her pending trial.

They had offered neither interrogation, harassment, nor torture. Apparently, the Amyntasi Clusters were very humane when it came to handling the accused, if this was anything close to the norm. If her trial was at all similar, then perhaps there was hope. Maybe she could use this opportunity to be completely honest with them, warn them about Sephiroth, and finally, obtain some kind of meaningful, official asylum on this planet. It would be pretty ironic, and maybe even a little funny in hindsight, to have to say that getting arrested on suspicion of murder was what had truly started her on the path to regaining her dignity.

Yet, it was only a precious glimmer. Damning evidence surrounded her on all sides, and pointing to a strange, otherworldly force might come off as little more than a desperate, last-ditch effort to divert attention from herself. To them, it could just be something that would needlessly prolong the investigation and preserve her life, now that she thought about it. After all, the death penalty could very well exist here. Choosing to execute a person who appeared to trigger so many unusual, grisly deaths wasn't exactly something she'd call cruel, depending on the method—it was understandably preventative, if nothing else. Cluster 100 could very well choose to terminate her, if they concluded that she was the cause of Geostigma.

Tifa rolled over and glared at herself in the mirror that made up one of the cell's walls. The scariest part for her was that she couldn't say she was completely certain she hadn't somehow caused Geostigma to surface on Amyntas. Her friends had told her that neither she nor Minerva were carriers, but in the end, all that really amounted to was reassuring voices in her head. Even if they were still real people, that didn't mean they wouldn't tell her whatever she needed to hear to keep going, or that more likely, they were simply wrong. For instance, Yuffie had been infected when she was still alive. What if the Yuffie-presence in her mind wasn't really her friend, but a well-disguised manifestation of Sephiroth's will, still entrenched within her own?

" _Hey! I heard that!"_ Yuffie protested.  _"It only got to me on the outside. I escaped, and you saw it, remember?"_

"Yes, Yuffie, I remember," Tifa whispered, rubbing her face into the cushioned floor. There was that one spark of clean spirit energy that had fled Yuffie's body, just after they'd fought in the W.R.O.'s underground lab. Dangers lurked everywhere, but to look to Yuffie—that was paranoid.

What had she gotten herself into this time? Someone was probably keeping tabs on her from the other side of the mirror, waiting to see what kind of ungodly, alien trick she might try to pull off. The worst they were going to catch her doing was talking to herself. Feeling self-conscious, Tifa decided not to poke at Yuffie anymore. Once that girl started yammering, there was sometimes no stopping her.

Yawning, she softly answered whoever might be watching, "Sorry to bore you. This place is pretty secure, and I really can't do any of those things. I know, hard to believe, right?"

As expected, she received no reply.

Their idea of a prisoner's uniform was odd, she mentally noted, sitting up to inspect its reflection. If the same outfit had been presented to her in any other situation, she would have assumed it was for some kind of ceremony or religious ritual. It was all white and made of what felt like a soft cotton. The top hung loose off her arms and chest, and unless she separated the folds of cloth by hand or did a wide split, the pants hung down like a skirt. There were no identifying numbers or symbols anywhere on it.

" _Maybe it means 'innocent until proven guilty'?"_ Aerith suggested.

" _These people are equally flawed as humanity once was, including the propensity to obey their worst fears,"_  Genesis obstinately countered,  _"I wouldn't count on it."_

" _Yeah, well, either way, we have to think of some way out of here,"_ Zack chimed in, sounding more than just a tad annoyed with Genesis.

Her friends kept on talking and talking and talking. Tifa knew they meant well. She understood that they were only trying to help, but one voice was always conveniently absent: Minerva. Their situation could readily go far south from here, yet the so-called "Goddess" had nothing to say. On the rare occasion she did want to get a point across, she used Genesis as her sounding board. Why couldn't she just speak up and let her know the details of her plans directly? They were only living in the same head!

Lying flat on her back, Tifa sent one loud, frustrated thought inward,  _"Why doesn't she say anything to me?"_

Cloud, Zack, Aerith, Yuffie, Cid, and Nanaki all fell silent. For a very short while, Tifa remembered what it was like to have her mind to herself. She sorely missed it.

Then, Genesis ruined the moment,  _"The same reason men don't share strategies with their chocobos or airships."_

" _What a line of bullshit!"_ Cid interrupted.  _"I talked to my beauties all the time—"_

" _Normal, sane men,_ " Genesis elaborated.

For the first time since she'd agreed to help her, Tifa felt genuinely resentful toward her world's collective will. Was this some kind of twisted punishment for failing to save the Planet from Sephiroth a third time? She'd accepted Minerva's presence because she wanted to atone for all the bad calls she'd made with Eden, leading up to Sephiroth's resurrection and Gaia's physical demise. She was more than willing to take responsibility for returning what remained of her Planet to the heart of the cosmos. But one thing she wouldn't accept and didn't think she deserved was to be dehumanized; treated like a vessel in the most literal sense of the word, like a vehicle whose only purposes were to house and transport its owner.

She had thoughts, feelings, and memories of her own, damn it!

" _And to the Goddess they all return when your time has waned,"_ Genesis added.  _"What we are is but an expression of life's imagination, of her being. All that is born from the Lifestream returns to it. You know this."_

"Forget I asked," Tifa quietly snapped.

Graciously, Genesis and the others complied.

Tifa remembered how, long ago, the cycle of life was something precious; something fragile that required their fierce protection and tender care. Even she had gone too far in that ideal, and helped AVALANCHE blow up Mako Reactor One, back in Midgar. Many, many unsuspecting people died for the Planet. If it was to protect the cycle of life, along with satisfying a personal grudge or two, anything could be justified. Cid had once compared the Planet to a scared, defenseless little kid, floating in the vastness of space. For the longest time, she figured that was why Weapon had indiscriminately attacked humanity when Sephiroth summoned Meteor. Yet, in fighting so earnestly, even when they'd all resolved to stop being terrorists, she'd forgotten—maybe they all had—that the very same cycle could sometimes be incredibly cruel.

Minerva, the will of the Planet, cared very little for individuals—Genesis and Aerith were exceptions. All it cared for was its own well-being, and its continued ability to give and take away, so that it could give and take away, again and again. Then, at last, the cycle would cease and it would return to the Promised Land, which would follow the same pattern forevermore. Perhaps a better reason for wanting to maintain the cycle so smoothly back then should have been because of how much suffering the Planet itself could bring to pass when the Jenovas, ShinRas, and Sephiroths of the universe tried to hijack it.

So, that was it. All they were ever doing was pacifying an angry, childish, temperamental Goddess. How was that really so much different from what she feared the most now? The sanctity of a single life was just make-believe; it was nothing but—

" _Tifa,"_ Cloud suddenly intoned her name,  _"Prison might not be the best place to mull things like that over."_

"Probably not," she answered him aloud, casting aside any worries for who might be listening.

Now that she thought about it, there was one thing about her cell that seemed designed to torment: It was maddeningly boring. There was absolutely nothing to do but sleep, defecate, and wait. There were no books or magazines, no games or puzzles, nothing to draw or write with, and no devices to receive broadcasts of any type. The whole set-up seemed like it was constructed with the intent of inducing stir-craziness. And just before a trail, no less, when she was pretty sure anyone would be biting their lips or nails with anxiety to begin with! "Humane" was no longer a fitting word to describe her conditions. This was more like the treatment a barely cared-for pet might receive. The keepers had long ago lost interest, but to soothe their guilty consciences, they still made sure the poor creature was fed, bathed on a rare occasion, and had some fresh shavings in a clean cage to sleep on. Affection or toys, on the other hand, were a luxury of the past.

If this was the case, Tifa didn't want to know what the Amyntasi Clusters did to people they actually deemed guilty of a crime.

As if to answer her, the lock on the steel door clicked, and the exit slid open with a hiss. Two men wearing black police uniforms entered and wordlessly motioned for her to stand.

Tifa complied, and they bound her hands in front of her. Leaving the cell, they marched down a long, narrow hallway, and into a small, ornate, round antechamber. A gaudy maroon carpet cut through the center, leading to a much larger exit veiled in a thick, black curtain. On the walls, a mural had been painted, depicting tall columns of stone set in the midst of an unsettled ocean, each topped off with some kind of glass dome. Tifa tilted her head slightly at the subtle reminder of how very alien this world still was to her. She'd only had the chance to experience a couple of limited-means examples of daily life on Amyntas. Aside from her initial journey to city, and the rare escapade just outside the Cluster, she'd never done much in the way of exploration. For the most part, this world's history, landmarks, and basic geography were still a mystery to her.

Moving on, she attempted to step through to the next room, but one of the guards stopped her with a sharp, formal warning, "Wait until we pull the drapes. You are to meet with the Cluster's highest council of judges. Show due respect."

Wordlessly, Tifa nodded. She squeezed her hands together, feeling the apprehension building in the pit of her stomach and in the back of her throat. Come to think of it, she also knew next to nothing about this world's higher etiquette or customs. For all she knew, remaining calm and collected before the council might come across as a sign of total lunacy, given the severity of the situation. There was simply no way of knowing.

* * *

 

After a long, restless hour, one of the guards received a message through the same communicative wrist device Tifa had seen them use at her arrest. It was her turn. Procedurally, they loosened her handcuffs and held back the curtains for her to continue through.

Taking small, reluctant steps, Tifa crept into the next room, a grand chamber befitting a court session. The floor was made of some kind of polished black marble, and the walls were filled with huge, arched windows. Glancing out, she confirmed her suspicion that she'd been imprisoned on the highest tier—the elevator up had taken quite a while. Finally, before her, there were four elevated tables, each seating three of the judges.

A few of them regarded her with thoughtful curiosity, but most just cast sour, unimpressed glares down their noses. The latter had probably already made up their minds, Tifa considered. Lowering her eyes to the floor, she continued her procession to the far end of the chamber until she reached a small chair, set directly in front of the judges' tables. Sitting down, she waited to hear what they would first say.

And waited, fidgeting, until—

"Tifa Lockhart, you must know the charges against you. Do you not intend to refute them? Or shall we simply agree to acknowledge your guilt, and move on to sentencing?" an old, gray, balding man seated at the center of the second table spat.

Her breath hitched, and she clenched her teeth. This trial wasn't looking to be fair. Exactly how was she supposed to know the charges against her, if no one had ever bothered to explain them?

Nevertheless, she answered, "All I know is that I've been caught in the middle of some awful things. I even get how bad that has to look, I do. I'm an outsider. I don't know how this world works, and that makes it easy for everyone to be suspicious of me. I probably would be too, if I were in your place. But…I haven't killed anyone."

To her left, a gentle-faced, middle-aged woman softly cleared her throat, while the right side of the room rose and departed in a perfectly straight line. "Those are the members of the court who would have judged you under your own admission of guilt. We remaining six will determine the veracity of your claims henceforth."

"Thank you, ma'am," Tifa muttered. At least someone was willing to give her a clue.

"Of course. Now that you understand, we may proceed. Your words sound sincere and heartfelt, yet we are left with two rather obvious dilemmas. First and foremost, you agree that you are not from Amyntas, correct?"

"Yeah."

A younger woman, also on the left table, leaned forward, clasping her hands. "As you may or may not know, the inhabitants of our world, Amyntas, are its children. Our planet has raised us. While we live, we commune with it, and execute its will. When we die, we return to the soul of our world, nourishing it with the knowledge and wisdom we have acquired in life. You agree that none of those statements hold true for you, so enlighten us: Where are you from?"

Inside, Aerith jumped.  _"Tifa, these people really are Cetra! This world's Cetra are still alive!"_

Tifa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. If they really were Cetra in the same manner as Aerith's ancestors, maybe they'd be more likely to believe her than she'd first ascertained. She could only hope. "My world has been destroyed," she announced, a small tremble creeping into her voice. Repeating that simple fact was never pleasant. "It's gone now…In the end, all I could do was run."

The balding man who'd first addressed her snorted, rolling his eyes. He'd looked upon her with nothing but pure disdain from the moment she'd entered the chamber, and he was all too eager to make it clear his opinion hadn't changed. "Precisely  _how_  was your world laid to waste, and whatever possessed you to choose Amyntas for refuge?" he snarled, making Tifa flinch.

Where could she even start to answer him? With Sephiroth's birth? With Jenova's arrival on Gaia? With Eden's appearance, when she'd become the most intimately involved with the whole debacle? Or maybe with one of the two times Cloud had defeated Sephiroth before, to highlight the recurring nature of the danger possibly on its way?

"I—My world was visited thousands of years ago by a malicious creature. The people at that time—the Ancients—who were just like you, had to fight this thing. Most of them died before they were able to contain it. Then, people from my time unearthed and released it, thinking it was one of the Ancients. They tried to use it to create super-soldiers, but—"

"Wait, wait, you and the 'Ancients' were two separate peoples?" the balding judge interrupted. "Then, I have to assume you're trying to tell us that your people weren't originally from your world? No such thing as home for you and yours, right? This just keeps getting more and more convoluted, don't you think?"

"We weren't the same, but as far as I know, we all came from the same place," Tifa pushed back, trying so, so hard not to snap. This man was clearly not interested in anything she had to say. He just wanted his chance to berate her before passing his ill-informed judgment. "But those scientists succeeded, and one of those men couldn't handle learning how he'd been created. He decided he was supposed to be better than human and tried to become some kind of 'god' by taking control of the Planet…and after a while, after a few tries," Tifa stuttered slightly, and blinked hard.

Rehashing even the most basic version of what had happened made her hate the sound of her own voice. If she hadn't been there to witness the whole ordeal for herself; if she hadn't been stuck right in the middle of it, what she was trying to convey to the court would have sounded rather contrived, even to her. The old male judge was being unnecessarily confrontational, but if they couldn't believe everything, she almost couldn't blame them.

"Please continue, Tifa. 'After a while—'?" the middle-aged woman coaxed her.

"He almost did it, or maybe he did…I don't know," Tifa rambled before concluding, "but he destroyed my Planet. A man named Sephiroth ended my world, and with everything that's happened, I think he might come here next."

Farthest to the right in the group of remaining judges, a younger man paused in his furious note-taking, frowning. He rose and emerged from behind his table, approaching to speak with her face- to- face. Standing before her, he kept his arms crossed, sizing her up.

"I'm deeply sorry for your loss," he sympathetically began. "It's incomparable to any other."

Tifa lost it. She hadn't felt it coming, and it was embarrassing, but a deluge of tears flooded her face, and she buried her face in the palms of her hands. This was the very first time that anyone with real authority had not only recognized her for what she was but had also at least come close to expressing an honest belief in her account.

"The stress of learning to survive such a thing must be overwhelming," he continued.

"Yes," Tifa squeaked, still trying to rein in her emotions.

"There are probably times when you try to pretend that nothing like that ever happened. The evidence, as we know it, goes so far as to suggest that you've attempted to live somewhat normally among us for a full year now, and in that attempt, subjected yourself to some of the worst squalor that Amyntas has to offer. For that, I apologize." The young judge paused, and then turned to face the others, raising his voice, "But there are still some disturbing facts that make no sense to us. There is a second dilemma, as my colleague had mentioned: Literally every single soul in this world who has ingratiated his or herself with you has died a grotesque, merciless death. That includes the family of three who initially took you in, Tifa."

Stepping aside, he activated a small device in his right hand. A series of holographic images of Mirnu, Sailyo, and Laiyon appeared before Tifa. Nothing was left of them but corpses, fully consumed in the dark rashes and sludge of Geostigma.

She couldn't speak. What was there left to say? How could she ever prove that she didn't do this? Tifa stared in shock, shaking her head. "…too terrible," she finally uttered.

"Indeed. What you may not know is that these souls, for whatever reason, have been unable to rejoin with Amyntas. Instead, they cling to whatever fears or resentments they held in life. Somehow, your name is always spoken amongst them," he finished and stalked back to his place behind the tables.

There was no mercy left. Even the patient, middle-aged woman shot daggers at her, her lips pursed in sheer disgust before she read out the details of the deaths, "The little girl's name was Laiyon, as you should know. She literally melted to death before presumably passing the illness on to her parents. She perished only a few estimated days after you departed. The parents met with a similar demise, just three days ago."

"Sephiroth is—"Tifa tried, but the court wasn't hearing it anymore.

"If such a threat existed, wouldn't it have made more sense to warn us immediately? Instead, you concealed the deaths around you; you ran from them," the balding judge growled. "You've displayed behavior typical of a heinous murderer bent on committing further crimes!"

"I couldn't be sure, until Neyli and Vaniir—"

"Until you buried them beneath your shanty, at which point you conveniently took up residence in their home," the younger female judge finished. "I must admit, the story you tell is fascinating, Tifa Lockhart, but not because it exonerates you. Our world was also visited by a plague-bringing entity two and a half millennia ago. Our ancestors warded her off, but looking at their records of the incident, I have to say that their invader acted quite similarly to what we're seeing in you. She pretended to be one of our own before infecting her victims."

"You can't be serious," Tifa plead, sucking in even breaths to keep from panicking.

Were they honestly saying that she was just like Jenova in their eyes? Yet they ignored her, looking instead to two veiled judges at the table who hadn't spoken the whole time.

"We cannot determine her nature, but her culpability is without question," the first one determined.

"She should perish naturally in the Candlesticks, where Amyntas may receive her as a sacrifice," the other judged.

"You have to look into this a little more!" Tifa begged. "If I'm so dangerous, then why are all of you still standing? What about the police that brought me here, and the guards? Go ahead and keep me locked up if you have to, but don't do this. At least then I can try help you when Sephiroth arrives!"

The sound of her own voice sounded foreign and strained. Adrenaline pumped through her body, and her heart raced. Tifa knew she was in real trouble now. She had to try to make a break for it. But as she sprung to her feet, two guards immediately flanked her, restraining her arms from making another move. Until this very moment, she'd taken pride in the fact that she'd never had to fight one of the Amyntasi. Now she wished she had, because then she'd at least have been prepared for how strong they were.

Then, a sharp stab in her right arm alerted her to a needle forcing its way into her skin, drugging her with what she quickly found out was a strong sedative. She didn't even get the chance to try to struggle against their vice-grip hold. Her limbs were suddenly transformed into lead weights by how they felt, and her head swam with the urge to pass out.

As Tifa succumbed to the injection, the balding judge proclaimed, "Even if this 'Sephiroth' character should materialize, Amyntas will defeat him, blessed in all strength by the Place of Origin, the Universal Source."

 


	5. Human Sacrifice

Blinding streaks of ceiling light passed overhead, one by one. Voices surrounded her, murmuring to one another; nebulous, blurry words poured from faces she couldn't quite see. Wheels scraped along a rough, unkempt floor beneath her, jarring her back. When she strained slightly against her restraints, her body felt stiff and tired, and her eyes burned with the lull of artificial sleep.

Through her drugged stupor, Tifa tried to focus. She remembered that the Amyntasi guards had taken custody of her after her trial had concluded, sedating her before she had the chance to run or fight. And also before she could make a meaningful plea for the court's mercy when they decided to execute her.

Amyntas reminded her so much of Gaia, but in all the wrong ways. There were a few good people; a few wise or kind, but most of them would sooner kill off a disturbing messenger than face up to the fact that their world was in danger. They were a cowardly bunch, just like most of the world that had relied on ShinRa. Most, even at the very top, were only interested in maintaining their comfortable status quo, too hasty to settle for a false solution that would allow them the temporal luxury of looking the other way.

And now, as they carted Tifa away from the court room, down some unknown passage on the upper tier, she found a sick sort of comfort in their familiar, stubborn naïveté. The feeling was so wrong, and maybe even somewhat consenting to their deadly ideas about her, but it was a little like home. Once, long ago, ShinRa had needed someone to blame as well. Weapons were on the rampage, and Meteor had only been a week out from crashing down. A scapegoat offered a lot of mortified people a much –desired distraction in the face of all-certain death.

But then, she had escaped the death penalty before. Maybe it wasn't impossible to pull it off again. Tifa relaxed her stiffened neck, and let herself dose off slightly.

Somewhere along the way, she'd entered an elevator. The sinking, descending pull of gravity stretched on into a lengthy, indeterminate period of time. Like a proper prison or dungeon, the place the judges had termed "Candlesticks" was probably at ground level or lower, she figured. That might be a good sign; unlike Junon's gas chamber, this place probably wouldn't test her with a potentially fatal leap off an oversized cannon raised hundreds of feet above the ocean. Undoubtedly, Candlesticks would have its own special challenges, but it was pointless to try to guess what they might be.

A morbid conclusion Tifa had drawn was that she simply wasn't destined to die—to suffer, yes—but death seemed deeply disinterested in her. So long as she was present to witness its methodic, violent assault on her sanity, her life was safe. If only she could turn its indifference against it; make it bored with its own purpose.

Wishful thinking was always nice, wasn't it?

They had moved on to some kind of bustling tunnel now, and the guards were loading her into a vehicle. So this was where the Amyntasi kept their major transit systems! If they truly were Cetra, Tifa imagined that keeping it all underground made some kind of sense. Whatever waste these machines and passages produced was strictly isolated, prevented from impacting any of the wildlife above. Aside from the slums, with how clean the air seemed in most locations, they probably also had some means of scrubbing the vapors that escaped to the surface.

Tifa stifled a well-earned chuckle. Here she was, theoretically on the way to her execution, and she'd finally made some time for a bit of that overdue sight-seeing after all!

"Candlesticks, pier seven," one of the guards muttered to the driver.

"Seven? What the hell did she do?" the driver exclaimed.

"Classified and under review. All we know is she's a high risk."

Trying to roll her eyes at her captors' gross misjudgment, Tifa found that they were rather comfortable to stay there, closed and nestled within her head. At the moment, fighting the sedative's effects was meaningless. No matter what they personally thought of her, it was obvious that these people were just doing their jobs.

A few minutes passed. Or maybe it was a half the day. Either way, her guards suddenly wanted her awake again. They were shoving and poking at her, trying to get her to move.

"Y'know, you could try talking…I use words too," she slurred, but they ignored her suggestion. She was a known alien now, and they were pulling out all the stops to treat her exactly that way.

Groggily, Tifa dragged her legs over the stretcher's edge and stood, bracing herself against it to keep from falling down.

Only one guard remained with her, while the other had wandered off…somewhere. In her stupefied, drugged haze, Tifa didn't really know. Staring at the tunnel's wall was growing strangely engaging until, impatiently, he snatched up one of her hands, and then the other, cuffing them together. He then motioned for her to head for the tunnel's exit, genuinely intent on not sharing so much as two words with her.

Tifa had to wonder if he'd been instructed to remain silent, or if he was doing so out of his own personal disgust or fear. Not that it mattered at this point, but she couldn't help but entertain the thought that perhaps, this was how most of the Amyntasi had seen her from the very start. She didn't have such difficulties surviving in the slums for a lack of know-how. Reliable allies had just been too hard to come by most of the time.

In the cold clarity of hindsight, they'd been impossible to find at all.

Stumbling ahead as steadily as she could manage, Tifa's mouth dropped slightly ajar when she saw what loomed before her. It was just like that mural she'd seen on the upper tier, on the antechamber's walls. Far out at sea, stone towers rivaling the height of sky-scrapers jutted out of the water, bearing what looked like oversized fish bowls at their peaks.

This was Amyntas' death row, although they had yet to reveal exactly how they intended to kill her. Tifa had to give them credit: They sure knew how to paint certain doom in a glorious light. Back on Gaia, not even ShinRa's most lavish properties before Meteorfall could have compared to this kind of architectural engineering.

Peeling her gaze from the ocean, Tifa looked down the dock. Ahead, toward the very end, there was a small row of boats. An elderly woman stood there, waiting with a small bowl in her hands.

Catching up to her, Tifa's guard grabbed her by her right arm and ushered her the rest of the way, until she stood before the old woman.

"This is our sacrifice?" she inquired.

"From Cluster 100, a murderer in exchange for our continuing endurance. She is like the trespasser from long past," he explained, adopting a sanctimonious carriage that Tifa could tell was just a ridiculous act for this part of his duty.

The old woman grimaced. "So it may be, but she is yet weak. We are safe. She will die easily." Dipping her fingers into the dish, she drew a circle on Tifa's forehead with her pointer finger.

Thick and black, the substance ran down into Tifa's eyes. In this macabre ceremony, they'd marked her with fluids they'd collected from those they'd presumed to be her victims. She wasn't worried about becoming ill with Geostigma—if Sephiroth had intended his stigma for her in that way, all her previous exposures would have been more than enough to bring her down. Let them do whatever they pleased. Her greatest concern, she decided, was simply to observe everything and stay awake. Hopefully, with enough precursory observation, she'd be able to find a way out.

After that, the guard quickly herded her into one of the boats, and fired up its motor. Racing out to sea, they passed one tower after another. Soon, the shoreline was barely visible, and only one more remained, straight ahead.

Pulling up to its base, the boat slowed, circling it until it stopped at a small entrance to the tower's interior. It was nothing more than that, Tifa noted—there wasn't a door or barricade, just a hole. If all these people planned to do was take her to the top and hope she'd just die, they were sorely mistaken. Yes, they'd come a long way out to sea, but not more than a mile or so. She could swim the distance back to shore, barring any rip tides, overwhelmingly large waves, or predatory sea creatures.

All of which she had no clue, but that was just a chance she'd have to take.

Cooperatively, Tifa stepped out of the boat before her guard saw fit to push, shove, jab, or kick her again. Inside, she found the expected spiral stairwell, along with a small diagram of the tower's interior on the wall, engraved into a metal placard. Her heart sank. If she was reading it correctly, there were ten locking checkpoints on the way up. If she had her full strength, this would have been the exact moment at which she'd stopped playing along with whatever the Amyntasi- Cetran Cluster government wanted to do with her. She would have throttled the guard, and then taken the boat back to shore, preferably somewhere far removed from Cluster 100's territory.

No wonder they'd so heavily sedated her.

At this rate, she had no choice but to move on, and hope the top offered some kind of respite.

* * *

 

Tifa panted and leaned hard against the one final gateway to her supposed execution. The way up had been almost as long and twice as trying as the ShinRa building. Or maybe she was just out of shape? It had been a long, poorly-fed year since she'd done any real exercise or fighting.

Unsympathetic, her guard forced her to stand up straight, grabbing at the link in her handcuffs and painfully straining her shoulders. Loosening the lock, he freed her hands before giving her one last boot into the space ahead.

Falling down on her hands and knees, Tifa heard the gate slam shut, followed by the guard's quickly fading footfalls back down. Like a countdown, each checkpoint locked down as well until her entrapment was completed. There was nothing left to do but wait for the sedative to wear the rest of the way off, and then investigate. Albeit, she was too anxious to do the former. She wasn't about to bet her life on a place like this being safe to nap in. Crawling up a ramp-like incline, Tifa dragged herself out into the open.

At the very top of her assigned tower, Tifa gasped. She was inside one of the glass enclosures she'd observed on the way. Outside, the surrounding ocean was placid and still. The view beyond that was incredible. At this height, she could see past the other towers to the shoreline, where the boat that had brought here her was quickly approaching. Only somewhat distant, Cluster 100 stood tall and proud on the horizon. From behind her, the beginning of sunset illuminated its graduated tiers, while the rising of Amyntas' largest moon provided the city a nocturnal crown.

A small, half-laughed hiccup bounced from inside Tifa's throat. Why did beauty and horror have to be such fond bedfellows? She was privileged to be here, absorbing the sights of an alien world—a world with breath-taking cities and nature; its own eclectic mix of people, animals, and technology. She really was. No one part of it had ever quite prepared her for what she might encounter next. Yet, through her distractive musings, the latter half of her situation, the horror, in the form of an itchy smear on her forehead, reminded her of why she was here.

From what she could see, there was only one way out, through a small balcony on the furthest edge of the tower from the sealed entrance below. Leaping from this height into the water promised instant death to anyone who'd dare to try it. The tower itself contained literally nothing. There was neither food nor water. Aside from an overhanging ledge near the entrance, there was no roof, and no way to control the temperature. She was completely deprived of sustenance, and exposed to the elements. To top it off, there was no toilet, and no way to bathe. Just sitting around and waiting for nothing to happen would grow unsanitary very quickly.

This place, the Candlesticks, was made to force prisoners to choose how they'd perish. Here, she could die of dehydration, succumb to illness or exposure, or commit suicide before it became too unbearable. All the while, they'd called her a sacrifice—a sacrifice to their planet, Amyntas. Hers was a sentence meant to objectify and humiliate. The judges couldn't make heads or tails of what she was, or what her real intentions were, so they drew the worst conclusion possible, allowing them to issue the harshest sentence in their arsenal. By sending her here, they could flaunt their control over a being they vaguely suspected of being the same as Jenova.

" _These guys don't care who they have to kill, so long as they get to act like their planet is safe,"_ Cloud agreed.

Tifa looked down at the clothes she'd been issued, this time with both understanding and astonishment. They appeared sacramental because they were. Her trial had probably been a farce; a show she had to put on before the judges issued their already-decided upon verdict. If their relationship with their world was based upon feeding it new knowledge and wisdom through the life cycle, then what better treat for it than an alien sacrifice? What tastier morsel than one who knew of things having nothing to do with this isolated sphere? Even here, there was no exception to the cruelty of life.

Cetra or no, the Amyntasi were not justified, holy keepers of their planet, Tifa decided. They were barbaric cowards.

" _Tifa, I don't know what to say. I'm sorry,"_ Aerith's voice murmured from the back of her mind.

In all of what had been Aerith's short life, Tifa had never heard her sound so guilty, so contrite. She was probably shocked. How gut-wrenching it must feel, to find out long after her natural life that her ancestors might have been just as crooked as normal human beings. What a dark revelation it had to be for her, that being born from the Planet had made them neither sacred nor particularly righteous.

But she couldn't bring herself to answer her old friend's apology, because of what they were soon to share in common. Tifa had been so confident that she'd find some way to slip out of this trap, but as the sedative's effects grew weaker and weaker, the more clearly she could see that no such thing existed. Like Aerith, she was to die atop a Cetran altar.

" _The Goddess will intervene when your death is immediately imminent. No sooner,"_ Genesis supplied.

Tifa perked up, enlivened with a morbid, tricky thought. If that's all she had to do to force Minerva's hand, then, "Just watch me!"

Shutting her eyes and clenching her back teeth, Tifa broke into a full sprint for the balcony. She could do this. She could take control; show Gaia's disembodied soul that she wasn't just a convenient shelter or mode of transport. She was still her own person, and if all she had to do was hold herself hostage, from here on out, she'd be the one calling the shots.

Then, a sharp peal of thunder nearly knocked her back, halting her only precious inches from the edge.

Her heart throbbed in her ears, and she watched the dust and pebbles she'd kicked up in her run take the plunge she had not. Far below, where they fell and disappeared, the waters had grown severely agitated. Waves crashed and sloshed at the base, and leapt into the lower entrance, probably flooding it. Looking up, Tifa beheld low-hanging clouds rapidly gathering out of nowhere, spinning directly overhead. Bolts of crimson and violet reached out from their center, like an electrified spider crawling through a small hole.

The rim of the tower's glass walls caught one of the lightning strikes and sparked to life, buzzing with a fresh, live charge. Startled, Tifa booked back beneath the meager shelter of the awning near the final checkpoint. She'd lived long enough on this world to have seen a few rough storms. None of them had ever looked or acted like this, but with how the tower was reacting—

" _Might be Amyntas, tryin' to eat yer ass up, just like they want,"_ Cid commented.

Outside, rain began splattering hard on the stone floor, and water surged down the ramp to where she was hiding.

Tifa pressed her back against the bars, eyeing the shape-shifting clouds. Black and misty, they dipped and receded like searching fingers, assaulting the platform above with water and blasts of wind.

She'd seen this before, hadn't she? Black doomsday clouds, risen from a world utterly consumed in rot; corrupted souls heeding the call of their new master. Tifa hissed through her teeth, trying to calm her nerves enough to think coherently.

"No, that's not possible, Tifa," she corrected herself. "Amyntas isn't that sick yet. Not like that."

Her friends fell eerily silent at that statement, and her head felt suddenly heavy. Buzzing static overloaded her ears. Someone was trying to say something; someone was trying to push through. Tifa listened closely, but it was like trying to pick out a single voice from a million whispers.

Then, as quickly as they'd come, both the torrents of rain and the psychic static ceased. Trembling slightly, Tifa crept back up to the tower's roof. When she emerged, a massive, roaring, super-sonic explosion sounded from above, rolling the clouds back as though they were only plumes of dust. Crimson light poured down through the center of the storm, coloring the surrounding cumulonimbi in its deep hue. As it reflected off the raging sea, all the world was bleeding.

Still, Tifa dared to step further out. There was nowhere else to go, and nothing she could do to make her situation any safer. She was already drenched; hiding to stay dry was pointless.

As if in response to her boldness, the storm's winds died down. The ocean settled, turning into one huge, bloody mirror that seamlessly melded with the sky further out.

Then, from the shore, a series of sirens howled out their warning.

Tifa did an about face. From Cluster 100 and other populous locations further inland, bright columns of white magical energy burst upward and out, pushing back against the spreading darkness.

"That's…Holy," she said to herself, unable to tear her eyes from the spectacle unfolding in the sky above.

But that meant whatever had brought this tempest about had nothing to do with Amyntas accepting its peoples' sacrifice. What could an impressive, collective summoning of Holy magic like this mean? Frozen in place, Tifa continued to watch, pacing back slightly while it collided with the clouds, engaging in a full-fledged struggle. Both forces surged and retreated, again and again, neither making significant headway.

Another thunderous blast roared directly above, emitting a shockwave which, when it met with Holy, repelled it on every side. Slowly, the summon fell apart. Magnificent, fluid white power faded into corroded, weak, bluish wisps and dissipated, leaving only a tingly, electro-static charge in the air to indicate it had been cast at all.

Tifa swallowed hard and forced her eyes to peer up into the heart of the storm. There, she saw a perfect, black orb of spirit energy, melded together like an oversized materia, hovering within the opening. A golden ring of light surrounded it lengthwise, giving the illusion of an eclipse. As she observed the anomaly, her temples began to burn. She tried to pick up her feet, but they wouldn't respond. Frantic, she searched inward for her friends, hoping they had anything to say, but she could barely feel their presence. It was as though they'd all fled into the smallest corner of her mind, and they weren't making a peep.

No one said a word. The oceans and winds were still, and the shores had darkened. The world had fallen silent.

Blinking only once, Tifa almost missed seeing the dark sphere peel itself apart. Someone was coming down, and she didn't even have to question who. He was descending like shooting star with terrific speed, his hair and coat trailing behind him, coming closer, even while she begged for it to be anyone and everything else.

He crushed her denial in milliseconds, crashing through the glass wall.

Tifa finally forced her legs to jump back, but for all the speed of her reflexes, she was still too slow.

His sword pierced her chest just beneath her heart and exited through the center of her back.

This was it. Her life was over. She was going to die here, and he would move on, ever victorious in his world-consuming conquest.

Slowly, agonizingly, he retracted the blade, and Tifa fell to her knees. She coughed hard, and blood splattered from her mouth. Trying to inhale, the most horrific, deep pain greeted her efforts. Eyes wet, she looked up just in time to see him lift her from her spot on the ground by one hand. Suspended upright, Tifa felt her life's blood fleeing the wound from both her front and back.

Sephiroth leered at her, just as he had so many years ago in Nibelheim, smirking in joyous fury for the prey he'd caught. Only this time, she'd angered him far, far worse. She'd nurtured his child-self in Eden, and then stolen away the one part of the Planet that would have truly completed his ascension. The breach in her mind reopened, and Tifa felt it—how  _betrayed_  he actually felt when she did that, and how now, he burned with divine rage, intermingled with a sinister fascination for how she'd even accomplished such a feat.

Drawing her closer, until his lips nearly touched her ear, he quietly challenged her, "We both know this can't destroy you, Tifa. Show me what you truly are."

Tifa made a weak effort to shake her head—no, there was nothing left for him to see; nothing new for him to take from her but her already-fading life. But then, she started hacking again, uncontrollably. The flesh that Sephiroth had run through spontaneously started knitting back together; her ribs and lungs rejoining the broken parts that were killing her. A tremendous surge of energy flared to life within her, and every inch of her body was ablaze in terrific pain.

Dropping her on the spot, Sephiroth kept watch, his eyes continuing to bore through her while she struggled for her life.

Whatever was happening to her felt like using a summon materia, but instead of expending just a portion of mental energy, this was threatening to divide her in two! Streaks of light poured from her body until the sheer force of it threw her back several feet. On her back, she heaved for the oxygen the now-healed wound had deprived her of, while a few wisps of straggling life energy escaped her.

Coalescing together, and now looking very much like the Lifestream she'd once known, the strands and sparks took the form of Minerva. Standing between her and Sephiroth, the Goddess was fully clad for battle.

Low and dark, Sephiroth laughed and flapped his wing once to gain a small amount of altitude. "Oh? A generous offering, Tifa, but what shall I call the one who can wield the soul of a world?"

Violently shaking, Tifa couldn't bring herself to speak. Her lungs and throat were too rough, still healing from the massive damage he'd inflicted.

Then, it began. Minerva vaulted after Sephiroth, preparing her massive arrow.

Sephiroth blinked once, acknowledging the challenge, and raised his sword.

In one fluid motion, the Goddess released the string of her armor-fashioned bow, sending the arrow hurtling toward him.

For several long seconds, Sephiroth didn't budge.

Tifa's heart raced sickeningly fast. Was he really just going to let it end, right here and now? Just like that? What if all he'd wanted was one last opportunity to torment her for taking what he thought was rightfully his?

No. Of course not. His goal was ever the same.

At the very last instant, with a single, sweeping slash, he cut the arrow in two, cleaving through its center. The diverted halves passed harmlessly on either side of his head, and in another swift turn, he did exactly the same to Minerva's material form.

An unintelligible cry leapt from the back of Tifa's throat, and she reached out for the strands of life energy rapidly bleeding from the once-again defeated Goddess, willing them to return to her.

Shockingly, they obeyed, retreating into her body until she was left alone with Sephiroth yet again.

"When my journey is complete, I will meld with all worlds, and take my rightful place in Promised Land. Even this planet, overconfident in its stature and age, shall become one with me," Sephiroth coolly reiterated, raising one hand heaven-ward.

Mountains of rock and earth came pouring down from the skies at his unspoken command, gouging and wounding Amyntas in every direction Tifa looked. One of them piled over Cluster 100, crushing and burying it, wiping it from the face of its planet.

She couldn't stay. Tifa couldn't bear watching another world be torn apart at the hands of this man. Cold, formless spirit energy still radiated around her, and she recalled her narrow escape from Gaia. Pulling the Goddess' power in, clinging to it, she pictured the safety she'd found in that crystalline materia shell.

Heeding her wishes, the energy solidified around her into that same egg-shaped pod and levitated slowly upward.

At the moment, Sephiroth did not seem intent on pursuing her, too busy laying the world to waste.

Still, she continued to watch while the huge planet of Amyntas struggled in vain against him. Eight huge beasts—presumably this world's Weapons—emerged from the sea and began stalking toward him. Their fall was swift and decisive. The same piles of debris that had ruined Cluster 100 fell over them, dragging them back into the depths. At last, bright, fluid tendrils of Lifestream erupted from all around the planet. Defeated and resisting no more, they flowed together into a colossal airborne river, feeding into Sephiroth. Soon, he would command an even greater power than if he'd been completely successful in taking Gaia.

Gaia had fought so much harder than this, time and again. A large, old planet like Amyntas should have been able to turn the tide, but instead- "Why," Tifa wept, leaning her forehead against the wall of her shell. "Why couldn't you at least hear me out? I didn't want this to happen again."

Speeding into space, she saw the remains of a dead world, crumbling and falling into the much larger one below. Even though it should have been impossible without the Goddess, Sephiroth had used Gaia's remains to overpower Amyntas. Somehow, he'd found a way to hold the empty husk of a world together.

Tifa curled up and closed her tired, tired eyes. Behind her lids, she could still see Sephiroth, holding her gaze fast while he drank in Amyntas' life. That old, vulnerable open feeling at the forefront of her consciousness had indeed returned. In forcing her mind open to preserve her sanity, and to an extent, to control her, Minerva had erred greatly. Now, all Sephiroth had to do to regain his foothold was walk through an open door.

Drifting, Tifa was startled when, rather than mocking her, he merely reassured her,  _"We will meet again when you are ready to follow. Rest well, Tifa."_

Tifa shook her head. She'd go mad before she'd willingly partake of his conquest.

But then again, if she honestly counted the cost, she already controlled nothing—not even herself.

Wishful thinking was always nice, wasn't it?

 


	6. Choices

"Where…?" Tifa uttered.

The last thing she recalled was floating, numb and hopeless through the blackness of space, in and out of a restless sleep. Now, a vast plain of multicolored flowers and grasses stretched out endlessly before her as if everything she'd just endured had been nothing but a bad dream. Their fronds and blades tickled and pricked at her bare feet and legs as she took a few cautious steps forward. A mild, comfortable breeze swept unkempt strands of her hair out of her face, neither humid nor too cold. Ahead, maybe a few miles off into the distance, falls of clear, clean water poured through what appeared to be slits in the fabric of an early morning or late evening sky, nourishing the garden-scape below. Above all else, directly overhead, a massive vortex of spirit energy swirled and churned with the clouds in hues of blue, indigo, and emerald, occasionally converging together to form huge, luminescent spheres at its core, and ejecting them into space through an upward funnel.

In the corner of one eye, a fleck of green, glistening light distracted Tifa from the spectacle above. Turning to find its source, she watched in awe as a patch of flowers all bloomed together in a single instant, each releasing tiny tendrils and sparks of life. They floated up like heatwaves from a hot road, donating themselves to the spinning mass overhead.

"Do you remember the Gold Saucer, Tifa?"

"Aerith?" She perked up to see her friend standing off to her right, hands clasped behind her back.

"Come to think of it, it wasn't that long ago, was it? So much fighting, but we still had a little fun, didn't we?" Aerith continued.

Tifa frowned. True, it had only been six years, but, "That feels like another lifetime."

"Well, for most of us, it was," Aerith softly laughed, pacing from her spot, "but that's okay."

"I don't think so," Tifa countered, feeling her heart sink.

"It has to be, though, doesn't it?" she insisted, and a small, exasperated sigh later, "Before the Planet called me to pray for Holy, I had a dream. My mother brought me here, too. You could say…this is where everything begins and ends."

"The Promised Land;" Tifa concluded, "the actual place where planet are born, and return to when they die."

Aerith nodded once. "For the souls of whole worlds, yeah. Seeing this place made it easier back then. It no longer mattered what happened to me once I got to the Forgotten City."

"Then, maybe it's almost time for me to go as well," Tifa guessed. Melancholic, she hoped.

Tight-lipped, Aerith closed her eyes and shook her head. "It's not quite…like that anymore, Tifa. Things have changed with you, and with Minerva. I don't know what it means. It's just…different. You're different."

Tifa threaded a finger through the hole in her sacrificial Amyntasi prisoner's shirt, touching the skin where Sephiroth had run her through—the smooth, scar-free spot that should have been home to a fatal injury. "You can say that again," she quietly confessed.

Aerith sat down on her left hip and stretched her legs out in the flowers. "Even this place is different now. It used to dream only of the birth and re-creation of the stars, but now, it's breathing, thinking—like a living consciousness, slowly waking up. Maybe it hears the cries out there…"

Clenching her hands into tight balls, Tifa forced herself to ask, "Is Sephiroth capable of taking it over?"

Head bowed, Aerith paused long before answering. Perhaps she was listening, praying that the heart of the universe would give her the answers they both so desperately needed.

But then, droplets of dew rolled off the petals of a gradated violet flower beneath her, evaporating into streaks of new life before it could hit the ground. Whether from the falls, the process of blooming, or the eyes of a Cetran ghost, the garden used it all the same.

"I don't know. I can't tell," she finally admitted, rising to her feet and brushing the loose foliage from her dress, and the moisture from her eyes. "But at least you're free now."

"That's not exactly the word I'd use," Tifa answered tersely. She was once again fleeing the man for whom she'd unwittingly become an object of fierce obsession. There was no freedom in that.

Clasping her hands together in front of her, Aerith managed a weak smile. "Still, what Genesis said about you being Minerva's vessel is no longer true, Tifa. After what happened on Amyntas, she didn't have the strength to regroup. You called her back, though, and she dissolved…into you."

Startled, Tifa checked herself. Always somewhere, if she looked hard enough within, she could find the Goddess' quiet but imposing presence. Like this place, she was always dreaming or planning—or usually, trying for all she was worth to gather her strength. But search as she might, the corners of her mind and depths of her soul were devoid of Minerva's presence. In her place remained only a sense of heaviness that differed somehow from the emotional burden of having watched her friends and world after world die. It was like a longing or a hunger; an aspect of herself or a power yet untapped. Yes, there was some kind of power there—something difficult not to inspect just a little more, to reach out and claim—

"Let her rest," Aerith admonished, seeming to catch on to what she'd discovered. "It's better if you pretend what's left of her isn't even there. If you don't, one might not be enough. You'll seek out and take more without even knowing it—at least, not at first."

"One?"

"One planet," Aerith clarified.

With that bleak pronouncement, the waterfalls' rushing ceased as if they'd heard, and Tifa looked back behind her to see what had stopped them. Instead of the calming, low-light shades of dusk or dawn, the sky had turned pitch-black, illuminated only by far-off pinpoints of starlight. Taking a startled step backwards, the flowers that had brimmed with and birthed life only seconds ago crunched, brown, decayed, and dry under her feet.

Mouth agape in horror, Tifa jumped when a small, familiar hand suddenly grabbed one of hers.

Marlene.

"Tifa, it's time to wake up!" the girl shouted joyously.

Above, the vortex of lifestream was collapsing and burning up at is core. Flaming comets streaked across the night, pummeling it further into self-destructive submission.

Frantically, Tifa looked in every direction for Aerith, but her friend had vanished.

An insistent tug at her entrapped palm drew her attention back down to Marlene. Marlene, who like Barret, should not be alive. Marlene, who even worse than her father, had not just become another Geostigma victim, but the very catalyst for Sephiroth's reunion.

"Wake up!" she yelled again and again, "Wake up! Wake up!"

* * *

 

She came to splayed on the ground as if she'd passed out. Cold raindrops splattered in her face and eyes while Tifa struggled to regain her bearings. Her head swam and throbbed, trying to piece together how and when she'd arrived here, on what appeared to be yet another life-supporting planet. Remaining flat on her back for exhaustion, she cast long, confused glances at her new surroundings. The heavenly vision of the Promised Land, and the terror of its sudden, violent destruction were just figments of her sleeping imagination, it seemed. Just her frightened mind trying to figure out what came next.

Aerith had been there—had revealed something important, or that had a sense of urgency, but Tifa couldn't quite recall. Maybe later, when she had the energy to handle it, she'd ask again.

There were too many details missing, she quickly decided. The patch of land she lay on bore no evidence of her touch-down, still flat and damp. Nearby trees also showed no signs of having been too close to her crash site, growing strong and tall in what looked like a naturally twisted pattern, strewn with half-wilted vines and coated with mushrooms and algae. Most curious of all, she couldn't locate a single broken shard of her materia craft.

Straining to summon what little reserves of strength she still had, Tifa sat up and shuddered. The ground weakly pulled at her back in response, protesting with a sloppy, sucking noise as it released. Her entire backside was wet and dripping with mud. Every joint in her hands, arms, and legs were stiff from laying for what must have been way too long in the swampy, cold mire. And she felt weighed down; heavy, as if her own weight had become foreign to her.

"How far did I go?" she croaked to herself. To feel so weak, she must have been gravity-deprived for quite a while. She might as well have swallowed a boulder.

Awareness of her physical state was creeping back in far too quickly for comfort. Achy, leaden muscles, an empty stomach sour with hunger, and a parched mouth joined in the complaints of the frosty, unyielding body that had greeted her upon waking. For the moment, she had nothing to help any of it but her own bare hands and the flimsy, torn clothes on her back.

If something hell-bent on an exotic, meaty meal dwelled in this wasteland, she would make for an easy hunt.

At this point, in part, Tifa couldn't help but believe that wouldn't be the worst way to go. Better to be lost in the jaws of a hungry animal on a remote planet than to face another unjust execution attempt, or to cross paths with Sephiroth again. Indeed, there was now something heart-wrenching about the idea of so much as meeting with a single member of another civilized race. It was something too strong and bitter to be mere sadness or fear, but too weak and desperate to resemble the fires of hatred.

Although her mind was content to sit and ponder how she might sooner perish, her body adamantly refused that path. One hand in front of the other, she pushed herself forward to crawl on all fours, clawing at handfuls of slurry and rotten leaves. Just up a slight hill a yard or two away was a large, old, dead tree. The ground would be dryer there. Tifa had no plans after reaching it—those would have to figure themselves out once she arrived, if only she could make it.

One belabored inch after another, she reached the base of the hill, and forced herself to rise on shaky, unprepared feet. Hobbling and stumbling forward, she made her way up, catching herself from falling every few steps until finally, she let herself collapse, panting against the trunk. As hoped, the earth here was not the same soupy mess she'd woken up in. But then, beneath her hands, something prickled and crawled. Tifa backed off with a start but saw nothing but the brownish imprint of her palms in the layer of green and blue moss that coated the bark. Strangely enough, while she inspected it, she also felt as though some of her vigor had returned—enough to stand steady and unaided, while less than a minute ago, she'd barely been better off than an infant.

Maybe it was nothing but an adrenaline rush brought on by the assumption that she'd pressed her hands against a nest of alien insects, but something about it made her stomach sink.

Peering back down the hill, she noticed that a dried out, rotted path marked where she'd struggled her way up. She wasn't native to this world, though, she reasoned. Something as simple and normally benign as the oils in her skin might be like poison to some of the surrounding flora. It was probably just a disagreement in chemistry, but oh, how perfectly it seemed to represent the last two years of her life! Everything she touched; every goal she reached for withered away just like that.

Here, that relationship with her environment had turned starkly literal.

The longer Tifa trudged onward, the more energized she became, but at the same time, hints of panic were beginning to set in. How far would she have to keep walking to escape this marshland? What could she eat or drink in this world's wilderness? Was there any intelligent life to be found, or was this planet completely untamed? And what was she supposed to do if it was, or rather, if she never found any evidence to the contrary? For all she knew or could guess, this world might host one of the universe's highest civilized populations. She'd just never know a thing about it if she was walking in circles, trapped inside wilds that could very well span for thousands of miles.

"Looks like I'm wishing for company after all," Tifa reflected.

As always, in spite of everything, and no matter how great and oppressive that "everything" was, the urge and instinct to survive held out, strong and true. Not that she honestly relished the thought of meeting any new peoples, but if it meant a meal, fresh clothes, and even a modicum of time to think on anything but how to save her skin, then maybe the risk was still worth it.

Sephiroth had mentioned that they'd only meet again when she was ready to follow him.  _Willingly_. The idea that she'd comply with him in any state resembling sanity was ludicrous. Thus, Tifa dared to flirt with the idea that this meant she had nothing to fear here—nothing like what had happened with Gaia and Amyntas, at any rate. If she did run once again into civilization, people wouldn't fall left and right because he was stalking her. If Sephiroth was to be believed, then the only thing she really needed to be afraid of was how the next race might receive her. Ironically, she felt like she could believe him, because he was more the type to take pleasure in revealing his hand than in spinning webs of lies, knowing full well that no one could do much of a damn thing about it.

Abruptly jarring her from her inner negotiation, a hot, hissing breath blasted into her face. Pushing up through the cattails and reeds that concealed a deep, murky pool of water straight ahead, a huge, scaled beast resembling an alligator or crocodile had crept up on her. It loomed over her, staring her down with its mouth half ajar in a reptilian, razor-toothed, pseudo-grin. With a head the size of her whole frame, it could probably snap her up in one bite if it wanted to; if it was angry or hungry enough.

Tifa froze in place, returning the monster's icy, ravenous glare. No matter how she sized the thing up, this was looking to be an unfair fight. She was completely unarmed and unprotected. Her prediction that she'd get eaten alive seemed on the verge of fulfillment. With such a formidable enemy, and in these circumstances, "hopeless" was the first word that came to mind.

" _But you know better than that, Tifa,"_  Cloud reminded her, and memories of the some of the larger beasts they'd fought back home flared to life.

She...did know better, didn't she? It had just been too long. The only big and significantly dexterous ones back on Gaia were birds or other flyers. A creature this immense could indeed probably kill whatever it wanted to with a single bite or swing of its massive tail, but it was probably also just as impressively sluggish. Speed was definitely still on her side, whether she chose to turn and run or stay and fight. Running, she would escape this particular instance of danger, but would almost certainly collide head-long into another. If she fought and won, on the other hand, the monster's scales, bones, meat, and teeth were hers for the taking—food, weapons, and a makeshift shelter.

Even human beings were often most dangerous when hungry, tired, and scared. Tifa knew she was no different.

Leaping as high as she could against the pull of gravity, she lunged not for the crocodile's head, but for a sturdy, flat landing point on its back. Her feet met the rough, scaly surface with a thud and a small slip, burning their soles, but she ignored the pain. Reaching down, she latched onto a large, protruding scale, and throwing her full weight behind it, she ripped the hard, serrated chunk of flesh from its owner.

The monster growled and thrashed violently for its fresh injury, shaking its unwieldy head from side to side in a vain effort to shake or snap Tifa from its back. Its tail swept and flopped, but the vulnerable spot where she had chosen to launch her attack was completely out of the animal's range.

Determined, she sprinted up croc's back toward its head, scale in hand. Her feet were cut and bleeding, and the run was akin to trying to maintain balance on a narrow bridge during an earthquake, but she'd been through worse. Stars and planets, she'd been through so much worse! A little blood? She didn't care anymore. There was always more where that came from. Pain? No doubt she'd live to tell about it. But this monster would not. Kneeling atop the beast's head, she drove the pointed end of the scale through one of its eyes, piercing the membrane down to a layer of cartilage, scraping past bone, and burying it in brain. Unsatisfied, she allowed her hand to keep a hold of the makeshift dagger, her forearm following its grisly path into her foe to make sure it was embedded deeply enough to kill.

Moments and a final, exhausted growl later, the monster collapsed, and Tifa with it. Extracting her hand from the gore, she lay back and panted. How long had it been since she'd fought that hard? Maybe she hadn't atrophied and rusted quite as badly as she'd assumed.

Toward the monochrome, foggy sky, streaks of the crocodile's life energy spilled. For some reason, they did not drift away to rejoin their planet. Instead, they lingered, pooling together just over her reclined body, hesitant, as if in shock that this much smaller creature had actually managed to end their body's usefulness.

In idle curiosity, Tifa lifted a hand, stirring the airborne puddle. She wrapped some of its substance around her pointer finger, and the rest followed obediently, forming a small, glowing ball in her palm. It pulsated as she drew her hand back down to get an even closer look. Like a child who'd just caught her first lightning bug, she closed her other hand around it, and peered inside.

But it had vanished. Save for a slight glaze of translucent residue, the dark enclosure between her hands was completely empty. Soft, electro-static waves rolled up both of her arms in the wake of its disappearance, joining together at the base of her neck and traversing the length of her spine.

Tifa closed her eyes and looked inward, a storm of wonder and dread knotting in the pit of her stomach. There, three separate life energies swirled together, repeatedly meeting and dispersing. One, she instinctively knew had belonged to her since birth; her soul. Old memories that she once treasured called out to her; former happiness leaving bitterness in its stead. Nothing good ever lasted, and some things she once thought had been just were nothing but terrible and corrupt. There was no end to regret, was there? Sighing deeply, she turned her attention to the second, which was a disjointed mass of Holy magic, barely holding the frayed threads of a very ancient, powerful spirit together. It felt…very familiar. Finally, the last one was the sphere of light onto which she'd just clasped. Slowly, the orb unraveled into a straight, serpentine form. It weaved between the two others, binding them together, stretching itself longer and thinner to wrap around them again and again.

" _The Goddess vanquished, but a surrogate Omega is Omega still. Profaned, she now draws the strength and life of beings alien. And soon, the journey to rebirth may be forsaken for a celestial feast on the nectar of worlds,"_ Genesis' warning echoed from deep within her subconscious.

Tifa opened her eyes and sat upright. "Vanquished…?" she repeated, furrowing her brows. And then, "The Planet is completely dead? But it can't be if I still—can it?" The space between her eyes ached, and she knew she was trying to remember something.

Genesis had not been the first to warn her. She had heard something like it, just a little while ago, but in kinder, gentler terms.

Of course.

Aerith had said something similar in her dream, hadn't she? Sephiroth had destroyed Minerva, to the point where Gaia's conscious will had effectively become the spiritual equivalent of a vegetable. The Lifestream that remained only did so because Tifa had called it back. Her body and mind, once only a vehicle destined to go wherever the Goddess deemed, was now simply the incidental carrier of a massive amount of spirit energy. Until now, it had seemed content to sleep within her, distinct from her own life force.

The plants, moss, and algae that had dried up with each step forward—none of it was the fault of incompatible extraterrestrial chemistry, she realized. Tifa couldn't believe how much she'd managed to ignore it, but how many times had the very ground beneath her bare feet cut, scraped, gouged, and stung her? How many clouds of angry, swarming insects had she numbly stumbled through, barely registering their bites? This place should have meant a sure, hastened death from exposure. Instead, she had become death to it. She should have been much hungrier, thirstier, and wounded beyond recognition, but the remains of Gaia's soul still nourished her as the one who housed it, however perversely. Not a single nick or scratch had failed to heal.

Tifa stared at her hands again, morbid curiosity working its way into disgust. What was happening to her? It was as though the substance of her being had transformed into some type of mini, organic Mako reactor. If she did ultimately meet with more intelligent life, would she have the same effect on them as she had with this place? Would proximity alone kill them?

Maybe not. Not every single thing she'd touched on the way had died. The insects, the larger trees—those remained. Tifa stopped herself, half-hyperventilating, before the temptation to completely lose it became too strong. That kind of thinking wouldn't help her right now. Failing all else, the beast beneath her had required her to take it down in a more traditional fashion, with a little quick thinking, moving, and brute strength. It hadn't just dropped dead at her feet either. Only once it actually lacked a pulse did its spirit energy seem to mistake her for its home. Perhaps she was only dangerous to smaller, completely non-sentient things?

Listening to the sound of her slow, deep breathing, she noted that aside from her own turmoil, her mind was devoid of the usual chatter she'd grown accustomed to. For the most part, with the exception of a few very short interludes, it had been ever since she'd departed from Amyntas. She could still feel them there, but Tifa wondered what kind of environment she'd become for her friends. Could she sustain their existence with her will alone, or would Gaia's remains soon draw them in as well?

...No wonder Sephiroth had let her go.

No wonder at all. He had to have known this was going to happen, and probably figured that she'd become so perturbed and lost within her new state of existence, she'd eventually seek him out if for no other reason than mere understanding. After all, he had consumed entire worlds  _intentionally._ He had control over what he did and did not take.

And again, Tifa recalled what Aerith had said about being free. It was true, regardless of the circumstances, for she now had a choice. She could continue to act as Omega on its pilgrimage to the Promised Land. That was the unquestionably right and noble thing to do, wasn't it? It was the only good purpose she could truly hope to serve after what she'd allowed her world, friends, and family to suffer.

And the other option?

Tifa laughed at the absurd, horrible obviousness of it, angry that she hadn't caught onto it earlier. She'd never run into a more perfect definition of "rock bottom". What else could it be?

The alternative was that she could become Jenova.

 


	7. Identity

_“Soul wrought of terra corrupt, quelling impurity, purging the stream to beckon forth an ultimate fate. Behold, mighty Chaos, Omega’s squire to the lofty heavens.”_  
\--Lucrecia Crescent

* * *

She had laughed until her ribs ached and her throat dried; until it cracked and gave way to weak, silent sobs. Her mouth opened and closed, heaving and gasping for air while her whole body quaked with panic and interminable grief. Flashes of blinding self-hatred, burning like blood coated in glowing ash, beat against the backs of her eyelids with each furious squeeze. It poured out innocently as clear, salty fluid, drenching her face and meeting at her chin to drip down into the cold, wet, ignorant earth.

Tifa knew that with each spark of its life she sucked up, she forfeited more of her humanity, but she didn’t know how to make it stop. She couldn’t conceive of how to calm the raging life within her; how to tell it that it couldn’t have all the company it so desired. Mere passion without a definitive will, she felt the fragments of the Goddess coiled around her own soul, hungry, yearning, demanding— _“Let us become as one!”_

As she writhed and curled up with herself atop her slain monster, a soothing, numb exhaustion finally settled into her heart and mind. The ghost of a cool hand smoothed away the pain between her eyes, and Tifa swallowed her tears. Slowly, she slid down from her kill, feet squishing in the gore-laden algae slime at the pool’s edge. A hard, resigned sigh moved past her lips while she stripped away her Amyntasi vestments, along with their stains, cuts, and humiliation. Standing still at the water’s edge, she beheld her naked form in the moonlight, staring back at her from the undisturbed surface.

Pristine. Perfect. She was not merely healed or well mended, but completely unscarred. She couldn’t see a single mark from the many wounds she’d endured throughout her lifetime. The tiny, jagged marks from her fall as a child from Mount Nibel? Gone. That deep, diagonal line that had been etched from her right shoulder to her left hip when her first home had gone up in flames? A sight unseen, as if it hadn’t happened. The Goddess’ coil wrapped tighter, and Tifa physically flinched.

“ _Are you scared, Tifa_?” There was no voice; just words that seemed like they’d been impressed upon her mind from without. It was like madness shrouded in comfort, or maybe the other way around.

She shook her head. This had to be just another way she’d found to talk to herself, right? The compassion she’d normally shared with others—or rather, used to share—she’d turned inward because she so desperately needed it. For fear it might be the last time she’d ever speak to them, she dared not turn to Cloud, Aerith, or any of the others. Too much about her being had changed too quickly, and she didn’t want to make haphazard guesses or take thoughtless risks where they were concerned.

“I can’t remember when I haven’t been,” she confessed.

“ _And yet, this fear no longer becomes you. That which once possessed you has become your possession._ ”

Tifa’s breath hitched in the back of her throat, her dissociative haze shattering. Nothing about those words were hers. She still remembered herself enough to know that it would take so, so much more than simply wishing not to feel afraid for her to view her situation as some kind of advantage like that. The only soul she wanted to own was the one she was born with.

“Sephiroth,” she murmured the name, recognizing those thoughts’ true owner. If he was telling her not to be frightened, then the only correct response had to be sheer terror.

Mortification had to be the answer, but she couldn’t muster it anymore. Even as the list of atrocities Sephiroth had committed against her continued to grow, the gnawing dread stayed where it was, nothing more than a complacent acknowledgement of the facts. Part of her must have grown accustomed to the constant uncertainty and chaos. It wasn’t acceptance; she’d just come to expect it. Ironically, anticipating no improvement or answers turned out slightly easier than outright denial. It dampened the shock value, if not the soul-crushing sadness of it all.

She sensed Sephiroth’s smirk of approval, and her friends’ swift retreat into her subconscious mind in response.

“ _Soon, they will join with you as well_.”

When he said that, it felt like someone was trying to implode her heart, but she also saw the truth in his words. Perhaps he only intended them to prey upon her doubts and to break her, but they were nonetheless true. Unless she could figure out some way to sustain their individual consciousnesses, her friends would become interwoven with the remnants of Gaia along with all other life she’d absorbed, and they would be lost to her again—irretrievably dead this time.

Stone-faced, Tifa stepped forward into the pond until the water came up to her chest, finding it pleasantly warm. She scooped up handfuls and splashed her face, washing away the crust of dirt, blood, and tears before lifting her legs from the sandy floor to float on her back. Layers of filth softened and peeled away from her skin, and she cringed. If that was how completely soiled she was, maybe it was better that she hadn’t run into any type of intelligent life yet. At least the lizard monsters and bugs didn’t care how she looked or smelled. Running her fingers through her hair, she snorted at the thought. This wild, primordial planet, thus far free of humanoid drama—a place meant only to be survived or explored if visited at all—offered more solace than she could imagine in the company of beings who might actually understand her if she spoke. Both her home world and Amyntas had taught her that there was no underestimating the pettiness and cruelty of the thinking, speaking universe. Brimming full of liars and killers, maybe it was something that would truly be better off undone.

So, there it was: She had started to grow morbidly resentful of her losses. Wrathful, even. But for now, it was only enough to nurse a few begrudging thoughts. It was insufficient to win out against the warmth that she still so fondly remembered. The pain wasn’t yet enough to forget the precious lives she housed, those who shared her memories. She would do whatever she could to protect them. Mentally, with every ounce of willpower she could summon, she drove an invisible wedge between the churning mass of raw Lifestream and her friends’ spirits.

* * *

Hours of washing, scraping, cutting, tearing, and tying later, Tifa had finished bathing and reworked her clothes into something not entirely civilized, but a great deal more functional. The excess cloth of her once-flowing pants she tied behind her knees and bound each by a dried strip of what had been part of the monster’s underbelly skin. She’d done something similar with her top, carefully tearing away the fabric beneath where Sephiroth had run her through to create a loose midriff, which she then also tied flush beneath her chest and around the middle of her back. As she fastened the last leathery knot in place, the sun was starting to rise. She briefly allowed herself to wonder how she wasn’t exhausted when she hadn’t slept all night, but quickly dismissed the question. There was nothing truly mysterious about it. Her body didn’t work the way it used to, subsisting on food, water, and sleep. Clumps of dried out swamp grass spread out around her campsite were enough to testify to that fact. Tifa averted her eyes from the life-sapped ground to stare at the clear sky above instead.

“At least it didn’t keep raining,” she noted to herself, exhaling.

Sunlight rippled through the air in waves of deep crimson and gold, piercing through the humid fog still hovering around the streams and pools that spotted the landscape. If she had to guess, it was probably late spring or early summer in this part of the world.

This planet didn’t really notice her, she decided. When the sun reached its apex, the full heat of the day would wilt the stringy grasses just as thoughtlessly as her own footsteps had. She was little more than a mosquito where this world’s spirit energy was concerned; small and powerless—nothing more than a vagabond trying to make sure the voices in her head could continue to keep her company. Whatever Jenova had ultimately done to become the Calamity, Tifa swore she would never do. To obtain that kind of power, and to use it to destroy one world after the next required a kind of malice only someone with nothing left to lose could possess. It meant becoming so embittered with what she could no longer have that she wanted to deprive all creation of it. Tifa couldn’t embrace that idea. Even if the inherent, inevitable ugliness of some intelligent life made her stomach turn, the potential goodness of so may individual souls was well worth preserving. Close friends and family—they were the ones she missed so greatly, and to deny anyone their own for the sake of her personal sadness was unthinkable. She’d only succeed in cutting her own wounds deeper.

“ _Keep remembering us, Tifa_ ,” Aerith encouraged her. “ _If you can do that, we might all still see one another again someday._ ”

“ _I’ll give it my best,_ ” Tifa promised in a whisper, “ _but where do I go from here?_ ” She stopped and listened very carefully, but no one answered. The silence was so heavy, her shoulders quaked under its weight, and her eyes leaked from the strain. How was she supposed to do this alone? She didn’t even know where to start.

Then, there was warmth. It poured over the top of her head, cascading down to embrace her whole body. Audibly, Cloud’s voice resounded in her ears, _“All you need to do is make it there, Tifa. Get there before he does, and we’ll take him out together. After that, it’ll be over.”_

“Cloud,” Tifa whimpered, “how do I keep from hurting anything else on the way?”

That one question was all it took to drive his comforting presence away. Everyone seemed to know what needed to be done, but no one could really help her figure out how to get there without draining the life from half of everything she touched. It took everything she had not to fall to her knees and cry again. She pushed back against her embroiled emotions, rejecting them. If she wanted to, she could lay down and lament until it turned into mad, unintelligible howling. Her reserves of sorrow ran deep enough, but she had no business spending them. Not now. Anyone had that right but her, because she’d brought this burden onto herself. The only way to go was forward, through the marshes and its prehistoric-sized monsters, to whatever lay beyond that if anything.

Seemingly no longer capable of tiring physically, she trudged ahead. Smaller creatures occasionally scampered near to sniff her out and bite at her ankles, but a swift kick here and there dissuaded their interest, and they scampered away, warning the others, “This one is not safe. Go hide, go back into our holes and beneath our rocks. This one is a new predator; not like the others.”

* * *

Hours of walking left the scenery unchanged. The foggy haze didn’t entirely lift as the day wore on, instead hovering just above the ground, snaking between reeds and over the watery places in a gravity-defying river. By force of habit, Tifa swiped at her brow, but her hand came away completely dry. Her skin had prickled there—maybe it was whatever this world had for mosquitos and gnats—but it was like her body didn’t really register the humidity or exertion anymore. She could feel the sun’s heat enough, and the damp air still had its characteristic heaviness, but her physical being was hardly picking up on them even as a nuisance. As nice as it was not to be drenched in sweat just after doing the best she could to wash off, Tifa had never wished so strongly to be inconvenienced. Perspiration, scrapes, bruises, painful bug bites, or even an allergic rash from exposure to the surrounding alien floral would do. Anything to reassure her that she wasn’t too far gone from being human.

She kicked a few twigs along the ground and stretched her arms upward to relieve some tension. Maybe she was fixating too hard on what she was, rather than who. What really mattered was that the latter didn’t change for the worse. It was a moot point to worry about the former—she was literally the last fully human person left alive from her world. Still, there was no denying that what someone was inevitably informed who they became. Eden had taught her at least that much.

A small, rogue twinge of grief reared its head in her chest.

“No,” she murmured, and repeated, as if scolding an ill-behaved dog, “No.” It wasn’t safe to think of him but for what he’d become. Failure to accept that had proven fatal to her Planet. She couldn’t afford to repeat her error, even in retrospect.

Just off to her left at about thirty degrees, a snapping branch mercifully distracted her.

Ducking into some of the longer grasses for cover, Tifa slowly crept toward the tree that seemed to have produced the sound. It was a huge, dried out husk, so anything could have broken off a piece without much effort or even intent. Her curiosity wanted answers regardless—something for her mind to chew on that wasn’t part of an existential crisis—so she continued onward, gently brushing thick, green blades aside, trying to keep her contact brief so as not to siphon them beyond recovery. Barely emerging into the opening, she caught a glimpse of something red darting quickly out of her periphery.

“What--?” she mouthed and changed her trajectory to try to follow after it. Crouching lower, she quieted her breathing. For all she knew, it was just another animal or monster that had taken off exactly because of her close proximity. It was incredibly silly, but she was also chasing after it because it was a colorful object in comparison to nearly everything she’d seen here so far. She’d wandered for half the day, but the marshlands stretched on and on, showing no signs of ending anywhere nearby. The scenery had been growing monotonous until that thing had shown up—monotony that tempted her thoughts into places she’d rather avoid, at least for the short time she could.

A rustling sound dead ahead made her quicken her pace. Her target was swift, but not necessarily stealthy. Another clip of crimson slipped deeper into the grass as she approached—something flowy or floating. It appeared low to the ground, but like it was trailing or attached to something larger, perhaps taller.

Changing tactics, Tifa paused. After a minute or two, she heard her mark imitate her, as if equally curious as to why she’d stopped coming after it. Then, she took one small, light step forward, careful of where her foot landed. She was getting close, and it might only take the smallest snap or crunch to send it running again. Another step brought her back to the edge of the clearing where she’d started the chase. Through the thin veil of fronds and straws, she finally perceived what she’d been stalking, and her heart immediately invaded her throat. Not what; who.

“Vincent?” she croaked, stepping out of the weeds.

He turned to face her, tired crimson eyes assessing her, quietly fact-finding, trying to put unknowable pieces together. “Tifa,” he acknowledged, and cut right to the chase: “Where are we, and how did we get here?”

Tifa pressed her lips together tightly, urging herself not to react. This was just like with Barret—or maybe not, she argued with herself. One critical difference between the two was that Vincent hadn’t been felled by Geostigma. She needed to be careful, but it was possible that he wasn’t enthralled by Sephiroth. She had to know more before she could decide what to do.

“It’s a very long story,” she finally answered, sounding every bit as deflated as considering the journey that had brought her here made her feel. “Maybe you should go first.”

Vincent’s gaze trailed off to one side, as if contemplating where to start. “We were at W.R.O. headquarters. Now, we’re here,” he started, and then stopped, realization dawning on his face. “Hm. Missing time. Another nightmare, then.”

“That’s one way of putting it, Vincent,” Tifa’s voice tremored, “but we’re awake, and it’s still going.”

“Sephiroth defeated us.”

Tifa tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, also breaking eye contact, and quietly confirmed his suspicions, “Yeah. Our Planet is dead. I got away from him. Barely, but not entirely. It’s hard to explain.”

With a concentrated look downward, he briefly inspected himself, and ran a hand over the side of his neck while shrugging one shoulder. “Shelke, Reeve, and I did not,” he concluded.

Gawking at him momentarily, Tifa recoiled slightly when he pawed at his neck for the memory it provoked. He remembered precisely how he’d died, it seemed; not merely that he was supposed to be deceased. “No, you didn’t,” she agreed.

Another awkward pause passed between them.

“Still, ‘unscathed’ isn’t how I’d describe you, Tifa,” he said.

“You can say that again,” she replied, a weak, bitter laugh crawling up from her tightening throat. “But it was the end of the world. No one walks away from that kind of thing unchanged.”

Vincent offered a long, exhausted sigh in response before pronouncing, “I’m sorry, Tifa. I can’t allow those changes to continue.”

At that, Tifa snapped her head back to look directly at him; directly down Cerberus’ barrels. Her heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest now. She still wasn’t convinced that he was being used in the same way as Barret, but he was at least acting on incomplete information. She hoped. He had to be. “Vincent, listen to me. I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m doing Omega’s job. I’ll end those changes myself soon enough. I just have to reach the Promised Land before he does.”

“You’ve become a nascent neo-Jenova. There’s no time left to race Sephiroth to the center of the universe,” he insisted. “This stops here.”

“No, I’m not. That’s not what I choose to be. I won’t be. I’m going to carry Cloud and the others home, and then rest with them,” she pleaded. Understanding that she’d have to fight another friend was sinking in, and her stomach was sinking with it.

“Don’t misconstrue this as a choice again, Tifa,” Vincent continued, clicking off the safety. “You already know it’s happening.”

“It’s an obstacle, nothing more! Stop this,” she frantically countered, “because it’s either me or Sephiroth now. That’s the real choice here, Vincent. If not me, then who stops him? Who else alive understands what’s going on enough to be able to try?”

“Our time is done. Another civilization will handle him, eventually.”

“No. I can’t take that on faith. You haven’t seen what I have…Besides, it’s become too personal now. Long ago, I thought I could say that he’d taken everything, but now that I really have lost almost that much? It has to be me.”

“Another ‘Chosen One’, then?” he quietly retorted, and pulled the trigger.

Reflexively, Tifa ducked and rolled. Without thinking, she twisted around sharply and swept one leg under Vincent’s feet, knocking him off balance.

Black mist erupted from him as he fell, betraying the truth of his origin. It quickly rejoined him when he crashed to the ground, and he let out a feral growl. The dark spirit energy tore away at his human form, his back sprouting red, tattered demon’s wings, and his forehead raising into a crown of jagged horns. His eyes flashed golden light, but then died into dark, obsidian spheres. He was Chaos, corruption that had been corrupted yet again. Chaos, which was supposed to have returned to the Planet after Omega was eliminated, and it had. Sephiroth must have taken both it and Vincent’s soul when he murdered their world.

No, Vincent was not like Barret. He was far, far more dangerous, now re-weaponized into the mechanism that their Planet had designed to return everything to the Lifestream at the world’s end, thereby delivering it to Omega. With the roles they were both playing, the sick irony that she’d have to fight him now was not lost on Tifa. It reeked of Sephiroth’s sense of humor, of his obsessive familiarity with the life cycle that allowed him to manipulate it so.

Shot after shot whizzed by her head in fast succession, but she was able to move just fast enough that precious millimeters of space shielded her from them. Of all things, she couldn’t allow him killing shot. It wouldn’t really kill her, but judging from what had happened the last time she was supposed to have died, someone or something else would bear the consequences, and they would likely be catastrophic.

Expending the last of his ammo, Chaos-Vincent abandoned Cerberus and lunged after her with his bare, clawed hands.

As he closed in, Tifa stood her ground long enough to charge forward at the last second, her right fist landing an uppercut that crushed into his sternum. For that split second, she tried to see if she could feel out the Protomateria but had no such luck. It was nowhere to be found. This rendition of Chaos was completely unfettered from anyone’s control. Vincent was not at the wheel this time. At breakneck speed, she drove her other fist into Chaos’ ribs. She pummeled his torso with everything she had, until his claws found purchase on her right shoulder, sinking into flesh and scraping bone. A guttural screech emerged from her mouth, and she tried to pull away.

Chaos plucked her up by the clavicle, and violently tossed her aside.

When she landed, white hot pain instantly dulled to an unpleasant ache, and the claw-shaped holes in her shoulder quickly mended themselves. She rose to her hands and knees, and she could feel her palms drawing up enough spirit energy to heal completely. Something different was happening now, though. While she healed, a pulse throbbed up through her arms—not her own, but this planet’s. A mental image of the Lifestream flowing miles beneath her feet coalesced in her mind’s eye, and she could see it drifting along, gently humming. What would it do, to draw just a little closer to such a vast force…?

“ _Ignore it, Tifa! It’s not for your taking,_ ” Genesis’ voice snapped in her head, severe and urgent.

Tifa blinked hard and stood. No, she wasn’t thinking what Genesis seemed to believe she was. She wouldn’t take anything so great from this world, not now or ever. She hated that she was taking even a little, but the vision of its life-blood had bestowed upon her a twisted, wild idea. One that was crazy enough to work.

Overhead, Chaos was circling like vulture. Seeing her rise, he dove down to attack her again, racing at her just like he’d done to Omega back when Vincent had put the Weapon down.

Tifa locked eyes with him, focusing in on the corrupt energies churning within him. She was going to reclaim that energy and take Vincent back! Hands reaching high and spread out toward him, she remembered how she’d drawn the Goddess’ Lifestream back. She recalled feeling like a magnet, pulling in each streak of light that had once been Gaia’s divine being when no other recourse had remained. Conjuring up that desperate, terrified willpower proved effortless. She projected it at Chaos and pictured the same result. At first nothing happened. Tifa strained, pulling in harder. She could feel the two spirits there resisting her call, entwined with one another. She was face to face with the beast by mere inches when the knot released at last.

It collapsed and burst outward in a massive, globular shockwave laced with violet, blood-red, and black streams. The Chaos globe expanded, igniting the grasses and trees. Every living thing for miles around was incinerated, or combusted and died. The mists and ponds evaporated instantly, far too little to quench the fires.

At the epicenter of the explosion, Tifa spread her arms wide, still beckoning to Chaos’ essence, and most importantly, to Vincent. She felt her feet depart from the ground as she levitated up into the fall-out, eyes closed in deep concentration. She was only half aware of the broad, violent waves of spirit energy radiating out from her as well. Realizing that she couldn’t see what was going on, she peered out from her closed lids, and beheld the world below in sheer horror. She had indeed succeeded in tearing Chaos apart, but his undoing had left a massive, bleeding wound in the planet’s skin. Fissures had formed in the cracked, scorched earth, and pure Lifestream trickled forth, intermingling with the darker trails that were already swirling around her. The planet was trying to heal, trying to fight the flames, but the cyclone drew up the aquamarine tendrils instead.

There should have been a cacophony of noises—whipping winds, roaring flames, and wails and growls from the creatures being immolated—but Tifa heard none of it. Entranced, all she could hear was the world itself, shrieking in agony. Its blood-curdling cries filled her senses. Again, she picked up on its pulse, fluttering wildly now in mortal terror and blind panic. Oh, how she could relate to that kind of fear!

Turning her hands downward, she tried to will away the pain she’d caused, begging the planet to keep its energy. She didn’t want this and hadn’t considered that trying to capture Chaos and Vincent could have such an apocalyptic outcome—they were only two beings! She had to do something, anything she could to fix the damage. It seemed to be working. The high keening from the wounded world below died back down into a low, rhythmic hum that synced up with her own heartbeat. Maybe she had its attention. Hopefully, it was listening.

“ _Tifa, what are you doing?_ ” Cloud’s inquiry cut through, his tone alarmed and confused.

She pushed him aside in her mind. There was no time to explain. They could hash out the details of what was going on here later. She was getting somewhere now and needed to stay concentrated on the task at hand. Just a touch more and then—Tifa screamed at what happened next. At the very peak of her focus, a bright cerulean wave of light emanated outward from where she hovered, descending to pry open the seeping fissures into gaping sinkholes. Lifestream flooded out, swiftly merging with her whirlwind, far too fast for her to think about how to stop it. The world’s energy surrounded her now as a whole, spinning and writhing, deadlocked with her.

Dread gripped her. She should have known better. What had gotten into her, that she’d imagined she could pull something like this off? She couldn’t even find a way to control the continuous energy-sapping effects her physical presence had on some of the weaker lifeforms here. All she’d wanted was to take just one friend back; show herself that she could safely dare to hope for more than losing again and again. That she was capable of victory at all. The price of that wish had turned out to be the worst kind of fulfilled prophecy.

Below, the formerly lush green and moist landscape had rapidly shriveled up into a gray shell of its former self, aflame in places and spotted with ember-riddled carcasses. It was truly hopeless, wasn’t it? In this moment, more than anything, she wished the Lifestream would return to its body, but projecting her will onto it had done just the opposite. Destroying Chaos had inflicted a mortal wound, and now its spirit energy sought a strong, reliable vessel to carry it to its next life. With that thought, Tifa glanced around, looking for any sign that a natural Omega Weapon type of creature had emerged, but there was nothing but nothing in every direction. The only mercy was the thick layer of smoke spreading over everything, slowly blocking out her view of the carnage.

She had no control. She had no choice. Tifa stretched out a trembling hand, dipping it into the spinning energy flow. In a weak, tear-soaked whisper, she assented to what seemed inevitable— “Come in.”

All at once, every companion dwelling within her psyche cried out, “ _Tifa, no!!!”_

It was too late. The cyclone contracted around her, and rapidly compressed into a single point of light that drifted down through the top of her head. Inside, the Goddess’ remains immediately wove into the new world’s soul, but both remained separate from her own consciousness. Although it was not yet breached, she could feel that the mental barrier she’d conjured to protect her friends from merging with her or the Lifestreams she carried was now riddled with cracks.

Tifa didn’t know how much longer she could maintain that separation now.

_“Well done, Tifa. You will not lose yourself when the time comes. Now, follow...”_

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Toxicity Threshold

Cloud looked on numbly while Cid Highwind took a long drag off his cigarette and puffed out three white smoke rings. The old pilot held it up, gave a disappointed grunt, and extinguished it on the table in front of him. Maybe it just wasn’t the same without a solid, living body. The usual brain chemistry that went with the nicotine fix was probably missing in action. “Well numbskulls,” he wearily announced, “the way things are shaping up, I’d say it looks like we’re all good and fucked.”

“Grossness,” Yuffie complained, wrinkling up her nose and ignoring Cid’s morbid proclamation. Hopping to her feet, she moved over a few tables to get away from the smoke and stench.

The space Tifa’s mind had carved out for them was an exact replica of Seventh Heaven, along with the few blocks of Edge that had surrounded it. It was not short on comforts—they could eat, play games, drink, smoke, bathe, and even sleep for what little it was worth. Sometimes, it was too easy for all of them to pretend that Tifa was just prepping something tasty back in the kitchen; that she’d be joining them soon, and that life would carry on as it had been. Cloud wanted more than anything for their shared fantasy to be real. Even though they were only disembodied spirits, she still saw so closely to anything they needed. She still took care of them, while on the outside, as had often happened in their previous lives, she was faltering at looking after herself.

Claiming Yuffie’s former seat near Cid, he agreed, “It’s not looking so great. Back when Barret showed up, I thought that Sephiroth was just using him to try to corner Tifa, but between what happened with the Goddess and now Vincent, there’s got to be more to this…”

“Yeah, I thought that fucker was just after Tifa for that Minerva chick, too,” Cid supplied.

At that, Genesis and Zack pulled up seats on either side of Cloud.

“Tifa reclaimed the defeated Goddess’ energy as her own, not knowing what it would do to her. Even so, that’s a monstrous and impressive feat by anyone’s measure. Have you ever wondered how Jenova came to exist such as it did?” Genesis injected.

“I would rather not, but…it is like he’s trying to make her into something like him,” Cloud admitted, somewhat startled at the idea. He’d have to chew on that one for a while. “But why? He was after her for Minerva to begin with. What changed? That energy is still there.”

“As long as I knew him, Sephiroth always had kind of a thing for fixating on anything that really hit a nerve. Even before Nibelheim, Cloud. And look at how long he harassed you. After Tifa got along so well with that Eden kid, and then made off with the Goddess, this isn’t exactly surprising,” Zack opined.

“Perhaps Sephiroth-ascendant is not content to rise alone. It’s only convenient that she was once yours, Cloud. Obsessive spite and passion are close bedfellows in him,” Genesis suggested.

Cloud stared blankly at Genesis for a moment, aghast at what he seemed to be insinuating, and then shook his head, replying, “Sounds pretty far-fetched to me. The Sephiroth I know only cares about his end game. He’ll never succeed either way. Not with Tifa. She’d sooner die fighting him.”

“Yeah…have you noticed how many times that should have happened to her already?” Zack pointed out.  
Cloud grimaced; it was true. Tifa had survived the ends of three worlds, crashing down onto two worlds, an attempted execution that seemingly turned into an attempted murder, attempts on her life by corrupted versions of Barret and Vincent, and merging with the spirit energy of the third planet. To say that it seemed like someone was intentionally preserving her, even after Minerva was no longer in the picture, was no exaggeration.

He sighed in resignation, hoping to shelve the topic, but before Cloud could say anything else, Yuffie jumped up and interrupted, “Whoa. Just whoa. Are you saying that Sephiroth has some kind of creepy thing for Tifa because she played too nice with his larva-kid form or something?”

“It’s but a theory. His true intent for her remains to be seen,” Genesis answered her, “but I submit that it would be a first for him. It’s not as if you didn’t ‘play nice’ with Eden as well, but here you are with the rest of us.”

“This is totally insane,” Yuffie groaned, and sank down on in a chair opposite from where she’d sat before, cradling her head in her hands. “Eden did get really attached to Tifa, though…this is so messed up.”

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Zack said, hidden exasperation rearing its head. “It doesn’t matter why he does what he does. Going over what he wants or doesn’t is nothing but a distraction from our real mission. All that matters is that we help Tifa get to the Promised Land ASAP, and then from there we take him down once and for all.”

“Shit, I don’t know about any of that,” Cid started, lighting up again. “What I want to know is how we help Tifa in the meantime. How do we keep the rat bastard from stepping into her head whenever he likes, just for starters?”

“Yeah, and how do we keep him from pushing us to the back of her mind every time he talks to her?” Cloud added. “She’s starting to feel like we’re just running for cover and leaving her alone because we can’t help. It’s seriously hurting her ability to fight back.”

They couldn’t hear or see Sephiroth when he showed up in Tifa’s mind; his presence manifested like a poltergeist. Every door and window in the bar would slam shut and lock. The room itself would compress and crowd tables and chairs together, while tremors shook bottles and glasses down from their cupboards and shelves, shattering some of them. Outside, he caused a literal eclipse, a perfect black sphere phasing into existence and gliding to overlay the pseudo-daylight which the heart of Tifa’s consciousness provided, casting the entire place in an eerie sort of dusk.

Out of context, Cloud had once briefly considered that it was a breath-taking sight to behold. But only out of context. In reality, it stood not only as a symbol of a violent mental incursion, but as a reminder that slowly but surely, Sephiroth was succeeding in wearing her down. Her light used to expand and burst outward around the sphere into awe-inspiring ruby flames, resisting her visitor’s dark presence. However, the more time passed, the less dramatic that display was becoming. She needed their help, and soon. Their questions of how to do that; of how to make themselves more available to her hung heavy and unanswered in the air. Their strength had always been in encouraging her; in bolstering her spirit against the extreme stress she had to endure for their sake—at this point, possibly for the sake of all life in the universe at large. But Sephiroth was making sure that his voice was the one most prominent.

After a long, dour silence, Genesis concluded, “We’re impotent as we are now. Aerith and Nanaki are out studying the Lifestreams. I will go find them and see what information might be gleaned.”

* * *

 

There was a giant gorge encircling the outskirts of the Edge-clone that Tifa’s mind had concocted to shelter her friends’ souls. It was a relatively new development, created to act as a protective barrier, bottomless and too wide to cross safely. On the other side, an endless wasteland of spirit energy flowed and mingled. Amidst it all, a long, plaited rope of Lifestream that used to be Minerva stood tall and twisting. Occasionally, pieces of the braid would loosen and snake down to ensnare and merge with anything else Tifa had taken in. Since her unfortunate run-in with Vincent and Chaos, that rope had tripled in size. Worse, the onslaught of new energy had sheared off huge slabs of the canyon walls, which then formed tiny bridges between the two sides of the chasm.

Aerith sat pensively on the cliff’s edge, and Nanaki lay nearby. She gazed deeply into the other side, listening closely. The mess of Gaia’s ruined soul and all the other things that had mistaken Tifa’s presence for home made it difficult to zero in on anything coming from Tifa’s own consciousness, but it was still there, alive and brilliant.

“Can you make anything out?” Nanaki asked.

“Too many things,” Aerith half-complained, “but she keeps repeating that she has no control. She’s been saying that to herself for a long time—even before Amyntas—but it’s so much worse now.”

Nanaki squinted his eyes and looked up at the sun-like light hanging over the other side of the canyon; Tifa’s soul. “She’ll rally. Tifa is strong,” he insisted.

“She is…” Aerith trailed off, her face pained. Even for her, honest optimism was becoming something of a struggle. “In a way, she’s stronger than she’s ever been. After Sephiroth got to Minerva, Tifa tried to save her, but it was too late. Instead, she’s gained a kind of new power, but—” Aerith cut herself off, daring not to define what kind of profane capabilities Tifa had picked up.

Nervously licking a paw, Nanaki lowered his head and finished for her, “No control.”

Aerith nodded once. She could tell that the whole story was too difficult for him to tell, too. “The first time she tried to use it, it overwhelmed her.”

“She took in an entire world because she felt responsible for it. We were lucky it was one so small and young. If something like this happens again, I fear we won’t survive,” he stated, glancing down into the abyss.

“Suppose we expelled what’s left of the Goddess,” Genesis’ voice interrupted their fearful conversation as he approached from behind.

Aerith turned, grateful to hear from him. All she and Nanaki had learned hadn’t amounted to any kind of a plan. It was encouraging that anyone was trying to come up with something that looked like an idea. They had to start somewhere. “How would we do that?” she questioned.

“Technically, that’s all on Tifa. We would attempt to assist her in doing so,” he explained. “Because it started when she recalled Minerva’s spirit, dumping it should halt the evolution she’s suffering, and prevent any further calamities at her hands.”

Nanaki cocked his head to one side and growled slightly in frustration. “This idea has its own problems. If she expels Minerva’s energy, she’ll become stationary, and Sephiroth might yet claim it.”

“That part’s not a problem, really,” Aerith replied. “Sephiroth took all of Amyntas. He doesn’t need Gaia’s remains. I don’t think he even wants it anymore, because…” Again, she trailed off.

Genesis regarded her with a hard glare for her incomplete thought and continued, “No; forgive me. Nanaki is right. Call it a matter of principle, but he would surely take it, if only to portray the complete futility of denying or fighting him. But as you say, it’s moot. The real danger is that she’d also lose the mantle of Omega, be left trapped in one place, and would probably not be able to contain us any longer. Perhaps we ought to focus on helping her reject anything but the Goddess instead…”

A shadow passed over the land suddenly, and the trio looked skyward to see a shining black disc overtaking the light. It moved slowly—hesitant, even—which was unusual. When it was finally completely positioned over Tifa’s luminescence, the land quaked. Aerith, Genesis, and Nanaki all scrambled away from the cliff’s edge and crouched low to keep balance. A few more large rock slabs broke away from the walls, some falling endlessly, while others formed more bridges. Once the shaking had finally stopped, the light expanded as always, but this time in huge, verdant, rippling aurora arcs rather than flames. The Lifestreams on the other side of the gorge halted their movement as if time had stopped, and every slab of stone bridging the divide crumbled away.

“Tifa’s protecting us,” Nanaki said.

“At what cost, I wonder?” Genesis queried.

Aerith didn’t speak right away, entranced with the lightshow playing out overhead. When she did, her voice came out strained and sickly—“No…he’s not concerned with us. Not yet. He’s using his own energy, preparing her…”

* * *

 

Tifa came to this time floating in space, her materia cocoon in orbit of a gas giant. She did not remember what had happened after she’d invited the primordial world’s energy to merge with her. All she could recall was that she had, that her friends had all tried to warn her against it a split second too late, and that she sorely regretted it. Remorse dangled heavy in the pit of her stomach like a lead weight, nauseating her. It was made all the worse when wracking her brain for alternatives produced nothing viable. There were no solutions; only the bare certainty that Sephiroth had sent Vincent and Chaos, as he’d sent Barret, to provoke exactly this outcome—that she’d do as he did, and as Jenova had done. Recalling just how powerful, how exhilarated she’d felt before realizing what was really happening triggered her gag reflex, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.

_“I’m a planet murderer now,”_ kept swimming around in the forefront her mind, biting with sharp, carnivorous teeth into everything she believed good and decent about herself.

Half frantic, she drifted closer to one of the more transparent walls for a clearer view and peered out. There, also orbiting the huge, purple and white streaked giant, was a medium sized moon covered in a fading atmosphere of smoke and ash. It had not been a full-fledged planet after all, which might have been why it hadn’t produced any Weapons to defend itself. It was just a small rock in comparison to a normal world; a place where maybe a stray, transient drop of life had taken root. And as far as she could see, there were no civilized ruins. Either Chaos’ undoing had totally vaporized anything that might have been there, or she hadn’t killed anything intelligent or sentient. Tifa hoped in the latter with all her might, and it was just barely enough to quiet her inner accuser. Just enough to take a deep breath and bask in the mercy that was reasonable doubt.

Still, somehow, the trembling that had gripped her body would not subside, and her guts churned in protest. It occurred to Tifa that she was in fact feeling a little sick. A hot flash passed over her, and cold sweat dripped down from her forehead, stinging when it met her eyes. Sweat! She was sweating, and she felt positively awful! A few painful stabs in her lower abdomen made her laugh softly to herself while she doubled over. She was still herself, still human, and still the same Tifa Lockhart that she’d always been, and would always be. Her eyes swam in her head, and her vision bleared, but she smiled all the same, enraptured in a manic rush of hope. Hope—that was still a thing!

Her blissful expression erupted into a projectile stream; vomit that free-floated into a putrid bubble across her gravity-free shell and pushed her backward to the opposite wall. Tifa clung to it, letting every bare skin surface stick to the cold materia. Her heart was hammering against her sternum, and she couldn’t catch her breath. As rapidly as she was deteriorating, perhaps it was too early to celebrate. She had to survive this illness first, whatever it was. She could hardly pin down her thoughts to think about it; they were zipping by like golden chocobos hopped up on illicit greens, but she finally managed to force her symptoms together into one coherent, recognizable picture.   
  
“Oh no, no,” she huffed. “Mako poisoning.” She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, cringing at the bile taste. Of course she had Mako poisoning; she’d just absorbed a moon’s worth! “Overdose” was a probably a gentle word for what was happening from a medical perspective. She was still elated to discover that she was subject to some human vulnerabilities, but of all ways to figure that out, this had to be one of the most torturous possible. Maybe, just maybe, if she could manage to sleep it off, she could skip over the part with all the weird hallucinations and disembodied, harassing voices.

A small eternity seemed to pass with her right cheek pressed to the wall, hanging on for dear life and praying that mental clarity would not abandon her. Her fever, however, did not care for her patience or her will to think straight. It danced over every neuron, sparking anxiety to life anew, exhuming dread for what might become of her. Without thinking about it, “Help…” passed through her lips while her eyes rolled back into her head. Uttering that one word all but crushed her soul. No one was going to help her. Her friends were dead and contained within her personal limbo for them, and there wasn’t much of a chance that a friendly stranger might cross paths with her here. Tifa was alone; she would either make it through this, or she would die.

To add to her malaise, the walls around her began to evaporate before her eyes, swirling and fading into space like water steam. She was still pressed up against something solid, but her egg was disintegrating into nothing. She felt like she might fall through the concave floor and descend forever, lost, forgotten, and unmade. Considering all she’d been through, the idea of fading away like that was almost relieving, but facing it as a reality was fast proving unbearable. Her will to live on was still there, still urging her to keep breathing and moving, even if it had to mean learning how all over again.

Then, there was contact. A smaller hand grabbed onto three of her fingers, giving them a light squeeze.

Tifa forced her eyes to focus as much as she could, trying to make out who’d shown up to this dangerous, crumbling place.

“Hello Tifa,” Eden greeted her, his tone soft.

On cue, red hot static flared between her temples, and she opened her mouth to scream.

Eden placed one of his pointer fingers over her lips, instantly paralyzing her. “Why are you so afraid? You called for help, and now someone is here for you.”

_“What are you doing to me?”_ she projected as acidly as she could pull off in silent thought. As her anger flared, she considered demanding that he show his true face, but immediately thought better of it.

“As of yet, nothing. That will change eventually, but all I’ve done is to set choices before you, and you’ve done with them as you wished,” he replied, his mouth upturned into a half-smirk.

Despondency overwhelmed her heart. He had plans for her yet; still more torment on the horizon. _“Sephiroth,”_ she called him out by his true name, _“why is it not enough that you’ve won? I have nothing for you. Just…let me go. Destroy me if you have to. Let this end.”_

Eden frowned, but opted not to justify her near-suicidal plea, instead gazing out at the smoldering moon. “Don’t worry. You’ll understand soon, Tifa,” he said, sounding almost forlorn.

In the blink of an eye, Eden vanished, and Sephiroth stood in his place. While he’d chosen to appear human, double halos of golden light hovered behind him, the uppermost intersected with a half-ring, like crowns signifying his oneness with and sway over the Lifestreams he’d taken. Multicolored sparks and flecks of rogue, disjointed spirit energy darted around his around his tall form like fireflies, giving him the appearance of a bioluminescent aura. He had transcended the life cycle, instead taking ownership of it one world at a time.

Now unfrozen, every muscle in Tifa’s body contracted, straining against the horrible reality before her. Nevertheless, she still managed to choke out, “There’s nothing left to understand. I’m worth nothing to you. End this.”

The space around him shimmered as he stepped out of phase, and then back in again, invasively close to her. Lightly pressing his left pointer and middle fingers against the skin where he’d run her through, he quietly retorted, “Enough. ‘Nothing’ does not survive this, nor does it meld with a small world in its wake.”

Tifa clenched her teeth and drove her back against the wall as hard as she could. Her fever was spiking, and Sephiroth’s nearness made every hair on her body stand on end. She closed her eyes against the dizziness, against the heat, and against his touch and piercing glare. “No…I didn’t want it,” she panted out. “It was an accident and it’s killing me anyway. It’s over.”

“Open your eyes, Tifa,” he commanded, slipping his right hand behind her head and cupping the base of her skull. “It’s not time for your surrender yet.”

She shuddered but complied. Fierce, slit-eyed cyan locked gazes with her, and the urge to scream returned, but she choked it back. In her head and radiating down her spine from where he held her, she felt something throbbing. For an instant, she was taken back to when she’d first sensed the moon’s pulse. But this one’s rhythm was out of sync with hers, instead filling in the spaces her weak, thready heartbeat left with steadiness and strength. This—this was it, wasn’t it? He was going to consume her soul along with those she carried after all! She’d been entertaining fanciful thoughts of simply dispersing into the emptiness of space, peaceful at last and never to care again. Instead, she was going to be twisted up inside him, enslaved, imprisoned, or dissolved along with billions of others, eternally damned. Tifa tried to rip her eyes away from his, but she was locked in place, mesmerized in horror like a rodent under the influence of a snake’s bite.

“Don’t fear; I won’t bring you to total ruin,” he countered her panic, finally releasing her, “and you will not join with me like the others, Tifa. Now wake up. You know what you have to do.”

* * *

 

A sharp crash, like a peal of thunder, jerked Tifa awake, and she inhaled sharply. Her eyes darted around her Omega shell, confirming that her surroundings were in fact solid, shielding her from the vacuum outside. Across the room, the former contents of her stomach still floated and wobbled, at once disgusting and strangely comforting. She pushed away from the wall, quickly swiping at her midsection and the back of her neck. They were intact, and as far as she could tell, unmarked. But the cloth her hands passed over was different from the rags she’d manufactured earlier. Glancing down at her body, she recognized the last clothes she’d worn back on Gaia—leather vest, shorts, and duster—clean and completely unmarred. She even had her shoes back, but as if they were brand new.

“How…?” she uttered. There was something about the power of Jenova she remembered from before Meteorfall, and how part of that was being able to change one’s appearance, and to an extent, the substance of things. That was probably not too far from the truth for her, if she had to guess. Not that she wanted to—it was a warped, discomfiting issue that made her question the very nature of her being and who she even was anymore. She’d had enough of that over the past couple of days.

As for the Mako poisoning, it was gone, but she wasn’t merely symptom free. It was as if the whole ordeal hadn’t happened at all. Her face and back weren’t sticky with old sweat. Her mouth didn’t taste like vomit, and her hair was soft and clean, like she’d just taken a shower and blow-dried it. For the first time in what felt like forever, she was physically comfortable. That is, if she discounted the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that came from understanding how she’d been healed.

She closed her eyes in frustration, and she could still picture his boring into her, could still feel his energy pulsing into her veins and overriding her nervous system, expunging the sickness and saving her life. Her mouth turned dry, and she spoke the name, quietly, a forbidden thing, a question--“Sephiroth?” A swarm of confused, nigh-perverse emotions flooded her senses. No doubt he had some fairly nasty ulterior motives for helping her, but the change versus literally every other encounter she’d had with the man was so radical it left her reeling.

And exactly what did he think she knew she had to do? Move on to another world and wipe it out too? No, she wouldn’t do anything like that. Never again. She would find a way to control herself, and then start seriously looking for ways to defeat him. The time for trying to find a new place to lay low and live a normal life had come and gone, if it had ever been at all. The universe was a big place, and Vincent had made a good point before she was forced to fight him—another civilization might be able to handle Sephiroth. Somewhere out there, there had to be a technologically advanced race who had mastered space travel, who might have the tools to get a better technical understanding of how Sephiroth’s power worked, and how to neutralize it. After all, unethical science was what had created him in the first place. She just needed to look for them and let them know what was happening. A people dedicated to science and logic, like Cid was, wouldn’t be as inclined to treat her as the Amyntasi Cetra had, would they? She had only to hope.

A mental image of Cid lighting up a celebratory cigar played out in her mind, encouraging her. _“That’s our Tifa. To hell with this rat-race to the Promised Land. It’s probably just a pretty black hole anyway. Go find us a way to take that motherfucker apart one goddamn atom at a time.”_

Tifa smiled inwardly and nodded. “No getting off this train we’re on, right? Right.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Unspoken Covenant

Sephiroth withdrew from Tifa’s mind and extricated the part of himself he’d projected into her ailing body. Exhaling softly, he considered this new metaphysical union he’d wrought between them, contemplating the implications. He’d once intended to avenge himself of her, as she’d stolen away with their Planet’s consciousness, making his dominion over the souls of Gaia incomplete. Not so long ago, Tifa’s fate had been that her spirit should crumble in his hands into fine, particulate matter until only the fact that she was in his grasp at all kept anything of who’d she’d been together in one piece. And she’d have been aware of this, tormented and plagued with a madness that would have played only around the fringes of her mind, but never truly set in. That had been her future until Amyntas. Until he’d mortally wounded her to provoke the Goddess’ appearance.

After he’d cut down Gaia’s core, Tifa had managed to retrieve that consciousness’ remains. That she’d been able to exert such control over so great a life-force, barely having healed from his strike, had caught him off guard, compelling him to reevaluate his intentions. He’d perceived that comprehension of what she’d done eluded her—that in dominating their Planet’s defeated self, she had set foot on his Mother’s path. Fight it or deny it as she might, her humanity was irrevocably forfeit, and an arduous evolutionary journey lay ahead. For that, Sephiroth had chosen not to pursue her when she’d fled from him the second time. He’d merely bid her rest until she was ready to follow him, and follow she eventually would, whether out of vengeance or need. The notion that she’d betrayed him by-proxy because of her former bond with his scion, and the consequent wrath it had fomented had abated, quenched in the knowledge of what lay ahead for her. In their stead, a curious note of wonderment had budded; something more akin to his sentiments prior to her little error, but sharper.

Using the gateway into her mind that Gaia had left wide open to him, he’d sensed it when Tifa had foundered, weak and unconscious, onto a small primitive rock light years from Amyntas. He’d reveled in her shock when for the first time, she’d restored her strength by melding with part of another world’s Lifestream. Such a small thing—merely the essence of a beast—but it had been enough to let her understand what was happening. Tifa had finally grasped the nature of her transformation, the name ‘Jenova’ gracing the turbulence of her thoughts while she’d wrestled with the choices before her. She’d accepted very quickly that whether she changed was beyond her control yet agonized over what she ought to do with those changes. Expectedly, she’d vowed that she’d never repeat his Mother’s deeds; that she’d never become a world-destroyer, while grasping at straws for ways she might still conceive of herself as human.

Witnessing Tifa’s struggle had pulled at something familiar deep within Sephiroth. Old memories of his own enlightenment and even of his youth stirred—those parts of himself he’d once sacrificed to maintain an existence within the Lifestream, but which had returned when their Planet’s true Omega had been defeated, rendering it defenseless. He remembered those vile makonoid pods inside the Nibelheim reactor, and the devastating collapse of every delusion he’d been force-fed since birth about who or what he was supposed to be and do, and for whom. He recalled the sleepless travail he’d endured for a week, pacing a dark basement lab’s floor, memorizing every last one of its perverse industrial secrets. The fear and disgust of believing that he was little more than yet another ShinRa-engineered monster, followed fast on its heels by the sweet epiphany that he was meant for something far greater than what those small, inconsequential minds had dreamt up for him. Carefully tracing again all those intersecting threads that had borne out the truth of his being, he’d concluded that this was essentially where Tifa was now. His next act towards her would be a gift, he’d decided; a painful, empowering kindness to guide her into accepting that truth quicker than what had been permitted for him back then. 

To start, he’d simply revealed to her a glimpse of the road ahead: In due time, all the life within her would become one with her, including her fallen friends. Intentionally, he’d not revealed how to control the power that recovering Gaia’s dead soul had bestowed upon her, knowing that she’d never allow herself to blossom into her full potential if he did. Instead, he’d urged her to abandon fear that no longer suited her. Then, he’d summoned up the memories of another of her old companions that he’d felled, merged him again with the creature Chaos, and projected them onto the small moon she’d been wandering so aimlessly. She’d find purpose in meeting them once more.

Although he’d imbued them with a drive to fight her, what she’d ultimately done with their presence had been entirely up to her… 

Interrupting his ruminations, Sephiroth returned to the task from which he’d broken, dropping a mountain onto the blue sphere waiting miles below him. It pierced deeply into an oceanic trench upon impact, radiating tsunamis that consumed entire continents and flooded towering metropolises under their crushing weight. The few places spared the deluge quaked violently, prompting fiery super-volcanic eruptions so expansive that anything that didn’t drown choked or burned up in their pyroclastic flows. Flailing against the apocalypse he’d brought upon it, the world woke its defenders, and he descended, sword in hand to have at them. Hovering over a central point at sea, just beneath the ash-laden clouds, he waited for the Weapons to converge on him. Waited for them to deploy their energy beams and flaming showers, eject their monstrous projectiles, and cast whatever magics they’d been storing up throughout the millennia. At last, when he was surrounded by their concurrent volleys, he reflected them, hurtling everything they’d aimed at him back in a psychokinetic tidal wave. Before they could strike again, he willed hundreds of tiny holes into the fabric of the surrounding space and threaded himself through them like a needle, blinking in and out of phase in rapid succession, severing limbs, decapitating monstrous heads, and bisecting gem-studded carapaces. When he’d finished, all at once, each of the Weapons confessed their demises in guttural moans, sinking in clean-cut pieces back into the depths from where they’d arisen.

Rising in their stead from far beneath the surface, Sephiroth spotted the final Weapon, long ropes of Lifestream already feeding into it from cracks in the ocean floor. He levitated in place until its crest rose high enough to meet the soles of his feet. There, he closed his eyes and locked onto the life flooding into the Omega. A rapid throb rang in his ears, the sound like a man on the run, desperate to escape the predator hunting him, yet knowing he was only delaying his inevitable demise. Good. Despite the show it had put on with its Weapons—there had been _twelve_ of them—this world didn’t have too much fight left in it. Lifting one hand heavenward, palm up, Sephiroth redirected and pulled the stream to himself.

The Omega tremored violently beneath him, destabilizing when the spirit energy within it surged upward, unable to resist his call. All around, the tendrils still gathering now swirled together in a cone, like an upside-down waterspout, each spark of life urgently swimming to the peak. The velocity of their spin tore and chipped away at the Weapon’s exterior. From within and without, the onslaught rapidly hit critical mass, and it collapsed, crumbling into the sea like its predecessors. Defeated, the planet’s collective consciousness also dispersed into the whirlwind, and all the world relinquished any life that remained. 

Sephiroth paused again as the sight of Tifa doing almost exactly this replayed before him. Until now, he’d captured worlds swiftly, as he’d done with Amyntas, not offering them the vain opportunity to fight him. But there was something fascinating—perhaps only an idle curiosity—in how she’d accomplished it, taking not just the spirit energy, but also surveying the death that had given it to her, laying eyes on all she’d destroyed. The image of her there, basking in the raw power, her body aglow with her own vitality and will—he would see her do this again, if only for the sight of it. Pressing both hands into the streams encircling him, he drew them inward, compressing them into that same minuscule spark he’d witnessed submitting to Tifa. It hovered just in front of him for a moment before darting in through his chest, as if to offer one last ounce of defiance; not because it made any difference, but just to show that it _could_. So resolute to the very last, it too was reminiscent of her… Altogether, this world had entertained him; reminded him of a pleasure in fighting he’d nearly forgotten.

When the time came for Tifa to take her next world, it wouldn’t poison her again; he’d seen to that. In aiding her recovery to ensure she survived her first one, he’d done more than simply impose upon her mind. The fear she’d felt, the terror that he’d only come to meld with her while she was helpless to resist him was not entirely without cause. In that moment, he’d entwined their souls once again, lending her his strength as he had when he’d possessed her to eliminate Genesis and Yuffie. This time, rather than force her to act, he’d left behind a mark—a promise and a reminder—that she’d discover later. He no longer desired to break her mind so much as he’d once planned, but she was still to bear witness to the completion of his ascent and beyond. That was the task for which he’d chosen her. Yet, it was a fool’s errand to pretend she’d be convinced by any conventional means to cooperate. He’d afflicted her well beyond that point. When he’d first manifested to her as his child remnant to stay her panic, he’d found that her fury had defeated all but a scintilla of the tenderness that ‘Eden’ might have once inspired. Even now, knowing that her life had been renewed at his hands, she was already plotting new angles on how she might destroy him. However, the magnitude of her ire was still useful. With it, he’d continue to guide her along Jenova’s path until she saw no other solution to her dilemma but to seek him out. Perhaps until that path’s power itself seduced her, abolishing entirely her absurd delusion of being ‘nothing’ in his sight.

Until, as it just had upon her awakening, his name found its way onto her lips again and again, half-whispered in awe and tinged with unbidden longing. Naturally, she’d dismissed it as the neurochemical aftermath of what should have been a lethal Mako overdose a hundred times over; a treasonous, invasive notion she dared not consider at length.

Sephiroth grunted slightly to himself at that, a barely contained smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

* * *

 

To anyone who knew what it had once been, Amyntas’ rubble was like a mass grave that had been robbed of its bodies. Nothing was left of the vibrant world but a miniature asteroid field. Tifa steeled her nerves while carefully navigating through the rocks. She forced herself not to look too closely at their details, not wanting to consider how this one chunk had been someone’s home, or how that one had been the spot where she’d first crashed down onto the world. She didn’t want to think about how the last place she’d been received with warmth and care had been so cruelly obliterated, and how that humble little family had died because of her before that. She wasn’t here for memories or more overwhelming reminders of what she was up against; she knew well enough, as much as she tried to avoid thinking about him. Sadly, this was just the first place she could come up with to search for a hypothetically advanced people. If they existed in this stellar neighborhood, she figured that they might have picked up on Amyntas’ untimely destruction and come to investigate. Admittedly, it was serious gamble; it was entirely possible she could search half the universe if time allowed and still find nothing. All she had to go on was a hunch that it wouldn’t turn out that way, but so far, things weren’t quite playing out as she’d hoped.

Further and further in she drifted, scanning the horizon for anything that stuck out—spacecraft, probes, robots—anything that wasn’t just more leftover detritus of the mighty world’s fall. What was supposed to have been a mighty world, anyway. Somberly, she wondered if things would have actually turned out differently if they’d taken her warnings to heart, or if that would have only prolonged the inevitable. True, they had been arrogant and prejudiced, but what effect would have any moral shift had against having the whole of another planet’s dead husk dropped on them? What difference would have a day or two of preparation made? If she was honest with herself, Tifa knew that nothing would have changed, least of all how this world had ended. In the same spirit, she acknowledged at last that coming to Amyntas hadn’t been her choice. Maybe her presence had visited an awful fate on a few people indirectly, but she’d done all in her power to avoid hurting anyone. Gaia had been largely her fault, and the moon she’d taken was mostly the result of her own desperate recklessness. But where Amyntas was concerned, Tifa finally accepted that her hands were clean. The worst she could say was that she’d tried to save them and had failed. It was strange, how powerful admitting her own impotence was in this case. How freeing. 

Tifa released a loud, exaggerated groan to break the tense silence, diverting from her mournful thoughts. This was the first time she’d roamed the expanse of space while awake for the whole trip, although “roaming” wasn’t exactly the right word. Once she knew where she wanted to go, either she or her shell—she wasn’t sure of which—opened up a rift that made going from where she’d been back to Amyntas’ former orbit about as strenuous as walking into a different room. On every other occasion, she’d been so exhausted or emotionally shocked that she’d fallen into something like a hyper-sleep state. That she hadn’t been this time, especially after what she’d done, how deathly ill she’d become as a result, and how she’d recovered, was profoundly disturbing. “I’m alive. That’s all that really counts. It doesn’t have to matter how,” she consoled herself aloud, if only for the noise. 

Listening to so much nothing—no people, no machinery, or even the sounds of nature—frustrated her to no end. It was the very definition of a deafening silence, enough to make her feel like she needed a reminder that she wasn’t just a brain floating in a jar that had mistakenly been jettisoned into the void. She could see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. She was present in body, even if partial sensory deprivation was something with which she had to contend. “I’m here, I’m solid, I’m alive, and I’m definitely not going crazy,” she announced, lightly punching the materia wall with each assertion.

A tiny, glinting light in her right periphery made her snap her head just then, and she gasped. There was nothing when she looked, though—just more and more slow-rotating debris.

“Might want to rethink that last part, Tifa,” she scolded herself. 

Dead silence settled in over her again. She chose that moment to take note of how, apart from Cid’s encouragement for her new plan, Cloud and the others had been suspiciously quiet since, well…since her health had miraculously improved. Tifa swiped nervously at the back of her head and neck for the umpteenth time, but like all the other times she’d checked, found nothing. She didn’t even quite know what she expected to find. Geostigma, a rash, or something ridiculous like horns or some other horrid growth, maybe? In a way, it was infuriating that she kept coming up empty-handed, because she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was _something_ lurking, in her or on her or just nearby somehow. Sephiroth had to have done something to her aside from merely relieving her of the Mako poisoning, but figuring out what was proving maddeningly impossible. At least he hadn’t used her to kill anyone this time. Tifa recoiled at those memories, but in retrospect, what had happened with Genesis and Yuffie had also been beyond her control. She had too much going on to keep blaming herself, and she knew that Sephiroth fed on that kind of thing. If a someone had broken into Seventh Heaven and killed a person with a broken beer bottle they’d swiped from the trash, the fact that she owned the place and had sold the beer wouldn’t make her the murderer. This was a lot like that.

“Hey, does anyone in there have any ideas? I could use a hand,” she vocalized, desperate for a distraction and hoping that one of her friends would get the hint. Hoping that Sephiroth hadn’t done anything to them to lock them away.

_“Sorry Tifa. Zack and Cid are kind of having it out,”_ Yuffie replied. _“Zack wants us to high-tail it to the Promised Land like we’re being run down, but Cid likes your new plan better.”_

Tifa allowed herself a sigh of relief. She’d imagined so many much worse scenarios for why they were keeping to themselves this time. “Great. Literal infighting,” she commented wryly.

An equally annoyed Cloud broke in, _“Unstoppable force meets immovable object, Tifa. Don’t ask which is which, though. Not sure why they’re wasting their time when it’s up to you in the end.”_

“Maybe you should try to break it up?” she suggested.

_“…Not interested,”_ he answered after a long pause. _“I’ll just let them wear themselves down. They’ll get there eventually. I hope.”_

_“Anyway, what do you think we should do?”_ Yuffie asked.

“I’m going to look for a little while. Amyntas was supposed to be the closest planet to the universe’s Promised Land, so I’ll try to stay near here,” Tifa explained, stopping to take in her surroundings. All she could make out through the shell were the world’s ruins and its sun. “Although, to be honest, I’m not so sure how to get there either.”

_“It’s very close,”_ Aerith offered, _“but it’s not like you can just walk in. It’s not on the same level of existence. Cetra can project themselves and others there in dreams, but not even we can get there physically. You have to be an Omega carrying a world’s living consciousness to its rebirth, or…”_

“Or what?” Tifa pressed.

_“You have to be powerful enough to force your way in,”_ she confessed. _“I don’t think anyone’s ever tried to do that, though.”_

Realization crept up on her, and Tifa’s blood curdled. “Aerith, just how powerful are we talking about? And why didn’t you tell me before?”

_“Too powerful. You were carrying Minerva before. I’ve watched what’s left of her since then, and it’s not enough. You’re not really her ‘Omega’ anymore, and I just couldn’t…”_ Aerith answered, and Tifa felt her choke up and retreat, distraught. 

_“Tifa, you can’t be thinking about trying to—“_ Cloud started.

“I’m not, I promise,” she interrupted him, “but that means we definitely can’t go there now.” 

_“Sooo…guys, I’ll just go let Cid know he’s won,”_ Yuffie awkwardly excused herself and receded as well.

“One atom at a time,” Tifa echoed Cid’s earlier words, clenching her fists at her sides, but she sensed Cloud pulling inward, and imagined him bowing his head slightly to one side like he often did when he was unsure or frightened.

_“I really hope that’s possible with a ‘god’,”_ he murmured.

“Don’t call him that. Don’t give him that, okay Cloud?” she gently rebuked him. “Gods need believers. I’m not letting him have us. As long as he’s still made up of things that can be measured, we can find a way to take them apart, no matter what he does or how he chooses to appear.”

_“…Okay. We’ll do what we can,”_ Cloud agreed and slipped back into her subconscious.

No longer listening inwardly, Tifa felt herself flush and hesitate, embarrassed and confused. Where was this bout of confidence coming from? How did she so suddenly find her way to forgiving herself? Not that she didn’t need it or welcome it, but logically, she should be just as terrified and weighed down as everyone else if not more so, but she wasn’t. Not anymore. She knew what needed to be done, and she knew she was going to do everything in her power to accomplish it. It was as if she’d finally developed a resistance to the fear. She was done with it; over it. She was done with letting her friends cower in a small corner of her mind with no guarantee she could pull herself together enough to take any meaningful steps. Protecting them, protecting the universe so that it could keep existing as it was, and defeating Sephiroth were all that meant anything. She was on a mission now—a crusade—and even if she lost? She’d make damn sure she died smiling, without surrender, so that one little part of his victory would forever be incomplete.

The more she thought on it, the lighter and stronger she felt. It occurred to her that it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she’d finally snapped and might come crashing down from this high with the next bad turn. For right now though, Tifa decided she’d cling to this rogue surge of hope that had overtaken her, reigniting her determination like a holy fire in the pit of her stomach and crackling at every nerve ending. She was going to choose to believe she could do it; that it was what she was meant to do. Everything in her gut was telling her to push onward. Hell might be the path, but that didn’t mean it was the destination. That had to mean something; it had to be more than just wishful thinking. 

Momentarily dampening her happy delirium with a start, she heard a sharp _click_ against the wall behind her, like a hailstone that had hit a window. Cautiously, she floated over to investigate the spot. As if the cosmos itself had answered her resolve, a small, silver globe with five antennae had affixed itself to her vessel with a tiny, plunger-shaped foot. While she inspected it, two of the antennae started blinking red and blue lights, and she looked up just in time to see three more of the little balls emerge from behind one of the larger asteroids. They propelled their way over with tiny emissions from small creases along their backsides and mimicked the first one, each finding a secure landing point and latching onto the materia. Taking a step back to get a wider view of the asteroid where they’d been hiding, Tifa saw them springing up in large clusters now, glistening together in the sunlight like an awesome burst of interstellar fireworks.

“Probes!” she exclaimed breathlessly, clasping her hands together. 

They came raining down on her, falling into a mechanized orbit and coating nearly every inch available outside until they’d blocked out the sun and stars, replacing them with alternating blinks of red and blue that gave her cocoon’s walls an almost molten appearance. 

A tiny pinch of apprehension surfaced in her thoughts because of all the unknowns, but this was exactly what she’d been hoping to find here. It was worth the risk. With any luck, these little devices were sending transmissions out to whom or whatever had sent them. With even more luck, the probes would turn out to be just a tiny sample of their creators’ technological prowess, and they would be willing to hear her out. Realistically, they almost had to; the machines surrounding her seemed like they had been actively collecting samples until they’d found something more interesting. If the right people had a chance to look at that evidence seriously, the existential threat that Sephiroth posed to everyone would have to be plain as day.

Tifa was more than eager to be able to hit back, and if everything fell into place as she hoped it would, the battlefield could soon be evened out for her to do just that.

 

 


	10. Cradle of Humanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter refers very vaguely to the concept presented in the Ultimania Omega that FFVII and FFX/ X-2 took place within the same universe, and that humanity originally hails from the FFX/X-2 world. Like FFVII itself, this story is about one millennium removed from the plot and characters of FFX/X-2, rendering them 99.9% irrelevant. This isn’t a cross-over—just a pitstop at place that is canonically stated to exist, and an extremely time-altered version at that. It’s not at all necessary to have played FFX/X-2 to understand fully what happens here.  
> \--

Finally, something other than her own silly, forced noises broke the silence. Tifa turned her head to her left at a loud clunking noise—the sound of two metallic slabs interlocking. A hiss from overhead grabbed her attention afterward, followed by hundreds of tiny little pops as the probes disengaged from her pod. Lastly, she felt the painful thud her feet and knees made when gravity kicked in, dropping her to the concave floor. Just barely, she kept herself from eating the wall by catching the remainder of her weight on her hands first. Peering just ahead, she saw translucent silhouettes moving closer to her on two legs, and she swallowed a deep breath. She called her shell back into her, and it followed her lead, dissolving and releasing her onto a much more tolerable flat floor.

Static-laden gasps erupted all around her as she landed, and when she glanced up, Tifa saw them—humanoid creatures dressed from head to toe in what looked like hazardous materials suits. Darkly tinted masks completely obscured their faces, and mesh filtering devices lined their necks, lightly rasping with each breath their wearers took. They pointed long, glassy wands at her, connected to small hand-pads that each of them eyed nervously when they weren’t gawking at her. Whatever readings they were trying to take, she was making their devices light up like the Gold Saucer at midnight.

Tifa raised her hands in a surrendering motion, hoping it meant anything to them, and lowered herself back down on one knee. “I’m unarmed,” she enunciated, cringing at the quiver the crept into her voice.

“Stay right where you are,” one of the masked figures replied, pronunciation unlike anything Tifa had ever heard, but the language plainly one that had been common back in Midgar.

Forgetting to breathe, Tifa bowed her head, unable to believe what she’d heard. There was no language barrier. To the best of her knowledge, she was nowhere near where Gaia had been, but these people, whatever they were, spoke in words she’d scarcely heard outside of her head or fevered dreams in over a year. An awkward, almost cartoonish thought about alien abduction crossed her mind for how they might have picked it up, but she shook it off as paranoia. She was here to ask for their help once the difficult introductions were done, not to get lost in fantastic worries about the sliver of a possibility that one of them might want to make her into an experiment or their next dinner.

“Miss, you’ve been severely irradiated. We’re going to have to quarantine you for the safety of the ship,” another suit spoke, a female voice crackling through its mouthpiece. 

“Right,” Tifa mumbled, nodding once, realizing that in her rush of optimism, she’d failed to consider any misgivings that seeing her literally absorb her mode of transport might inspire. Not that she had any idea of what else she might have done, aside from maybe let them try to crack it open. Considering her relationship to it, she had to wonder if that would have harmed her in some way. It wasn’t worth the risk. 

“Enna, Vits, get the containment cart, “the female suit motioned to two of the others. “Aron and Della, you two prep the area for decontamination once we’re clear.”

“Ma’am,” they responded, and proceeded to a large locker along the far end of the room. 

Tifa remained frozen in place, stock-still, eying every their every move. The two the woman had called Enna and Vits approached, wheeling a thick, metallic box reminiscent of a portable toilet that housed a bench, a small container of water, what looked like bandages, and a single overhead light. Not a big deal, she told herself. They were just protecting themselves. From her. Because she was apparently so radioactive that she was giving off enough to be dangerous to the people around her. The list of possible causes was short, but indeterminable all the same. The simple fact that she was hosting her home world’s only uncorrupted souls and what used to be its consciousness was one, and what had happened to the last place she’d touched down probably wasn’t helping. Her recently acquired life-absorbing problem was another. Or it could be part of whatever _he’d_ done to her… All three options had to do with intaking a tremendous amount of spirit energy and tolerating it, though. It could easily be a combination.

“Please step inside,” Enna motioned, and Tifa blinked once, realizing that she’d zoned out.

“Don’t worry lady. We’re not gonna store you in it. We’re just taking you to a nice, comfy cabin where you won’t make the rest of us glow,” Vits reassured her.

Mildly humiliated, Tifa stood and stepped inside, replying, “No, I don’t want that either.” Everything was going to work out okay. She’d known from the start that this process was going to come with some speedbumps. Temporarily confining her while they figured out if she posed a threat was a predictable part of the equation. She could take it in stride; she had to. 

When the containment cart’s door slid shut behind her, she overheard the unnamed woman issuing one last set of orders to her group—“Aron, when you’re done here, report to the isolation cabin and complete the unknowns survey. She looks like one of ours, but she can’t be this far out. We also need to find out how she’s putting off rays like that without melting. Della, review samples and footage from the probe array. I want to know what’s up with that oblong crystal thing she was riding in. She doesn’t seem hostile, but none of what we just saw makes any damned sense.”

* * *

 

Upon reaching what appeared to be a medical bay, Enna and Vits inserted the containment cart into a fitted slot. Locked in place, it opened on the opposite side and released Tifa into a small room. When she stepped out, they motioned her over to a large window overlooking the rest of the area and activated an intercom. Casually, both removed their face masks and head gear, and she nearly stumbled over backwards. Not only did her hosts speak the same language; as far as Tifa could see, they actually were human. It was too good to be true, but not a single detail was out of line. They had normal-looking faces with blue and brown eyes, mouths beneath noses with two nostrils, sandy colored hair and a bald head. She could see no extra joints or appendages, they were neither extraordinarily tall nor short, and both had some variety of earth-toned skin.

“Make yourself at home,” Enna said before he and Vits left. “Once he’s done directing the clean-up detail, our Commander has orders to come ask you a few questions.” 

Tifa took his advice and did her best to settle down, if not settle in. Behind her, the cart that had transported her now served as a locked door. The room in which they’d quarantined her was decked in unnerving medical and surveillance equipment. But they’d recognized her as someone who at least looked like one of their own species right away, she reminded herself. That part was promising, and she was doing her best to cling to it. Save for the numerous unidentified devices affixed to the walls, the presence of a tank clearly meant to hold a human inhabitant, and spherical objects lining the ceiling that she was certain were analogous to cameras for how they rotated with her every move, this wasn’t horrible. There was also a relatively average-looking bed, and two folding chairs pulled up to a table just beneath the window. Content to turn her back to the room’s more disturbing contents, she lowered herself into one, folded her arms on the table, and buried her head in them, trying to gather her thoughts and calm her nerves. It had to be a good sign that they wanted to question her. The possibility of a torturous interrogation had occurred to her, but the physical danger she posed had at least made that route too inconvenient, and they still wanted to talk. She had answers—so, so many answers—maybe more than they were ready for, but they were going to get them.

…Except for what had happened to the last place she’d crashed. The last thing she needed to do was give them a reason to think that _she_ was the one behind Amyntas’ destruction.

She stayed that way for about an hour and was starting to drift off when a low buzz overhead broke Tifa out of her reverie, and she lifted her head. Outside the window, a middle-aged man in a navy-blue uniform stood with a thin tablet in his hands. He now counted as the third most unremarkable-looking person she’d seen in what already felt like forever, standing at the higher end of five feet tall with black hair lightly frosted at the temples, dark brown eyes, a complexion a shade deeper than olive, and a medium but fit build. The only details that stood out were two small medals attached to his right shoulder, and eight diagonal white stripes on his left. The “Commander”, Enna had called him; the one who had orders to question her, solidifying Tifa’s suspicion that this was a military vessel. Hope crested anew; if they were military, they had firepower. That they were part of a space-faring military meant those hopes weren’t just the product of some desperate fantasy. They were very likely to possess the resources she needed them to have. 

Before addressing her, he attached his tablet to the upper right-hand corner of the window, stating, “Commence survey ‘7R: Persons or Entities of Unknown Origin’; Commander Aron Sudira attending.” The device emitted two quick beeps, and he continued, “Alright, I suppose we should get introductions out of the way. I’m Aron Sudira, second in command of my people’s local interstellar investigations fleet. The ship you’re currently aboard is called the ‘Passage’. What about you?” 

“Tifa Lockhart,” she answered, resting her head in her hands and leaning forward slightly on her elbows. “A little more than a year ago, I owned a bar and helped a close friend out with his delivery service. Not exactly exciting stuff, but…it was nice, back then.”

Aron folded his hands behind his back and raised one eyebrow, appearing genuinely surprised. “That _is_ tame, especially considering how we found you. Care to tell me what’s happened since then?” 

Tifa paused. She had to be careful. She couldn’t just launch into everything like last time. She needed to be smarter about how she shared her story this go around. “Before I get into that, can you tell me what you believe happens when a world dies?” she asked.

“Odd question,” he said, cocking his head to one side. “You aren’t some kind of cosmic doomsday nut, are you?”

Grimacing, she answered, “No, nothing like that. I just—it’ll be easier to explain if I know how you think about it.” 

“Got it, but there’s not much to ‘believe’, miss. When the situation gets a little too hot for survival, most life-bearing rocks have a mechanism where their energies, which we generally understand to be the catalyst for that life, are rolled up into one entity. That thing leaves the dead world behind and finds another one a comfortable distance from its parent star to start over. We’ve even had the privilege of documenting it—at least the part where the new world’s life begins, anyway. Hell of a sight. We call it ‘auto-terraforming’. There is some sketchy evidence that something else goes on in extreme cases—almost like the thing transporting the energy goes hyperdimensional, but not exactly like you’d think of for getting from point A to point B in a ship like this. It’s got to be going somewhere, but we don’t have much beyond some bizarre telescopic data, and a mathematical theorem to support that idea, though. It’s a work in progress,” Aron explained. 

Standing so that he wasn’t looking down at her, Tifa pushed a little more, “So…what if I told you that a person had figured out how to become that ‘entity’?”

Aron pulled a chair up to the window for himself then, crossing his arms pensively when he sat. “First, I’d want to know how they avoided getting killed in the process. Then, I’d say they’re one of the scariest sons of bitches I’ve ever heard of, because there’s no way that doesn’t involve some kind of omnicide, and I’d want to know why they did it.”

Nodding, Tifa fixed her eyes on her fidgeting hands. “Yeah, scary is one word,” she soberly agreed. “One more question, and then I’ll tell you everything.”

“Shoot.”

“…How is that we’re the same?”

Aron gave a tight-lipped, ironic smile. “Glad you asked first. Our history has a lot of blind spots, but about a thousand years or so ago, a combination of religious foolery and engineering errors destabilized our home world’s energy field. People got a little too excited about trying to tap into it. Story goes that all kinds of monsters and even angry spirits were running amok. Not sure I buy the part about the spirits, but around the same time, a private expedition of roughly 25,000 people was the first to leave and was never heard from again. Fast forward to today, and those of us who stayed behind have managed to terraform three other planets in our system artificially. The old world’s pretty much a ghost town. Now, we run into you, a quarter of a light year from home. I’m guessing the first expedition found what it was looking for, but lost contact. One of them was probably your grandma with about ten or fifteen ‘greats’ attached.”

“Maybe…” Tifa acquiesced. “For most of my life, my world was run by a corrupt electric and paramilitary corporation called ShinRa. The only history we learned was whatever version they wanted us to know, so not many people paid much attention.”

“ShinRa? That name sounds familiar…huh. A damn shame for both of us,” Aron commented. “Anyway, your turn Miss Lockhart.” 

Tifa hugged herself, shivers creeping down her spine while she paced. “ShinRa developed a project where they modified people into super-soldiers by treating them with the planet’s processed energy and materials from an alien life-form they’d found. They went so far as to experiment with this procedure on someone before they were born. Under the company’s watch, he grew up extremely strong like they’d hoped, but eventually he found out about the project…”

“Under the company’s watch? I’m sure they were perfectly humane. This extra-special super soldier lost his shit, didn’t he?” Aron guessed. 

She continued to pace as she spoke, heat building in her face. “But it was worse than that. He decided he was meant to be some kind of ‘god’, and I was just _lucky_ enough that the project was based in my hometown. He razed it, killed my father, almost killed me when I—” 

“Holy shit,” Aron interrupted with a start, glancing up at his tablet when it sounded a high-pitched alarm. “Uh, Lockhart, I’m listening, but you’re going to have to sit back down and take a breather. The radiation level in there is spiking dangerously high. No pun intended, but we don’t need a meltdown.”

Dropping her hands to her sides in frustration, she continued, “I guess the only parts left that really matter are that he developed a personal vendetta against one of my friends for stopping him. It was never enough, though. He kept coming back until he beat us. In the end, he destroyed our planet and took most of its energy.”

“Most of?”

“How do you think I survived?” Tifa sighed, already loathing how incriminating that had to sound.

“Would you say you’d been part of the project at any point?” Aron queried.

“No.”

“How’d you wind up with the leftovers, then? Are you sure there wasn’t something in the water where you grew up that might have exposed you?”

“I was just the last person left alive,” Tifa insisted. “He…doesn’t want me dead. Our world’s usual way of gathering its energy had been destroyed in an earlier crisis. I wound up with anything he didn’t corrupt." 

Aron ran a hand over his face, flabbergasted. “Well, that might explain the radiation. I feel like there’s more to how it’s not hurting you, but we can revisit that. You got a name for this divine wannabe?”

Tifa closed her eyes and bit her lower lip hard before answering, “Sephiroth.”

“Do you have any idea what Sephiroth is up to nowadays?”

“He also killed the world that used to be where you found me.”

“Damn. Seriously? We’d just come out this way to finalize plans for contact, not sift through its rubble,” Aron confessed. “You can imagine our reaction when all we found was a bunch of dead asteroids.”

Smiling sadly, Tifa looked Aron in eyes. “They called themselves Amyntas. They were about as good or bad as humanity, I suppose. The two might have been good for one another with a little work. I tried to warn them, too. I came back around this way hoping I’d find someone looking into it…Please say you have a way to stop him.”

“If you’re telling the truth, there’s a terraforming trick or two we have that he might not enjoy if they were pointed at him,” Aron answered. “I’m not at liberty to discuss those methods, but I don’t foresee many challenges in weaponizing them if we had to.” 

“That’s relieving,” Tifa said. 

“Would you say that this Sephiroth character still holds a grudge against you personally?” Aron asked suddenly, furrowing both brows. “Not trying to pry into anything, but you did say he doesn’t want you dead. If this guy’s going around knocking off entire worlds, we kind of need to know if we’re holding bait.” 

Tifa did sit back down then, breaking eye contact and lightly touching the back of her head yet again. This was a dangerous question. She had to be honest, but she also needed to avoid giving them a quick reason to reject her. “I don’t know. He’s not following me everywhere I go, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

With a heavy sigh, Aron rose from his place and collected his tablet from the window. “End survey 7R. Extensive follow-up recommended. Sudira signing off.”

Sheepishly, Tifa glanced back up and asked, “What’s going to happen to me?”

“You’ll stay quarantined for obvious reasons. We’ll probably want to perform some minor tests to see if we can turn off the whole human nuke thing you have going on, or at least isolate it without having to isolate you. I’ll share what you’ve told me with my superiors and see what they want to do with it. I’m sure we’ll be talking again sooner than later,” he expounded.

“Thank you for listening,” Tifa replied.

“Just my duty. Try to get some shut-eye. We’ll be home in about ten hours, and I can’t picture a scenario where we won’t be keeping you busy.”

* * *

Sleep eluded Tifa, and not only because she didn’t need much anymore. Voyeuristic mechanical eyes whirred and rotated overhead, unashamed of their purpose. She tried swapping which hand she’d folded over the other on her stomach, and two of the orbs directly over them moved as well. After a count to one hundred, she twitched a pinky finger almost imperceptibly. Again, the adjacent-most device still detected it. She turned over onto her side to face the wall and pulled her knees up to her chest then, curling into herself.

She was at least being treated as a serious witness to Amyntas’ demise. That was a good first step. However, as with anything else the probes had gathered from the scene of the crime, she knew that she herself counted as a type of evidence—residue of a bygone event that needed to be secured, tested, and interpreted. Tifa worried about what these people might find when they poked and prodded her, even though she initially believed she’d divulged enough that nothing should come as a surprise. Now, she wasn’t so sure. While they didn’t seem to recognize the ‘spirit’ in spirit energy, was it still possible for them to tell the difference between a world’s living consciousness and what it was she was housing? Would the two appear different under a microscope? Would they blame her? 

No, that wasn’t the right attitude. Honestly, how much better could she have possibly done than to find another human civilization to help her? Beyond simply forging an alliance with a people who might be able to stop Sephiroth, the fact that they were her own kind offered a chance for redemption. She’d do anything she needed to make it work; to protect them where she’d failed to protect Gaia. Any cost she might have to pay to defeat him, she would gladly give, whether that came in the form of grueling medical tests, or even if it meant doing something objectively terrible to prevent much worse. She could not, would not repeat the mistake she’d made with Eden. Tifa felt her gut clench, revolting at the idea of being so ruthless, but told herself that she’d just have to bear it.

Where had the optimism and confidence that had led her here gone? Searching inward, she found only the razor-sharp resolve that had accompanied them lingering on the surface. Alone, it was sorely tempted to cave to cynicism, assuming she’d have to betray her conscience, or that she was doomed to be dissected like Jenova. Tifa recalled the power of those feelings; how they’d lightened her spirit and given her a little taste of times past when she’d encouraged her friends—when she was the voice telling them that everything was going to work out, even if it had to hurt for a while. Concentrating on that memory, she allowed herself to ignore every hum and beep about her and searched her mind a little deeper. Yes, those positive convictions were still there, but just out of reach, as if something was preventing her from owning them—not exactly a puzzle, given everything she’d faced up until now. It was hard to embrace flying high when the next smack-down always felt so inevitable.

She needed both hope and resolve, but time and again, she’d learned that they weren’t always readily available. How many times in the past had she acted more confident and hopeful than she really felt to keep moving forward? Too many to remember, and this was no different. She didn’t need to feel invincible every second to know that meeting again with humanity couldn’t be a coincidence. Preserving them was her calling, and one she could believe in no matter what games her heart wanted to play.

Rolling over onto her back again, Tifa stretched out her legs and splayed her arms out at her sides. She shut her eyes and willed her breathing to slow. A gentle pressure settled between her eyes while she stared at the backs of her lids, and her palms tingled. She imagined that she was weightless, floating on the undisturbed surface of an endless sea—no waves, no wind or storms, no animals; just an infinite stretch of calm waters shielding her from the troubles of the waking world. 

Moments had bled into oncoming unconsciousness when she sleepily stretched her arms over her head and met with the resistance of a warm, very real liquid passing over them. Surprised but somehow not startled or frightened, Tifa slowly peered out of one eye and saw neither the ceiling lined with its many cameras nor the many medical contraptions on the walls. Instead, she truly was in something like the temporal place she’d envisioned to relax herself to sleep, afloat on a flat, black ocean under a moonless night sky. At first, it was blissfully monotonous, and she believed that she’d merely slipped from unwinding into a lucid dream. Then, a tiny streak of light caught her attention, followed rapidly by another, and another until the sky was playing out a torrent of shooting stars. They were benign; just tiny bits and pieces burning up in the atmosphere, but there were so many that heavens began to glow from their shared, overlapping milliseconds aflame. 

Watching the sky fall, a fresh wave of anxiety crashed over her, and when it did, she sank beneath the surface like an unsuspecting seagull snatched into the jaws of a predatory fish. Impulsively, frantically, she reached up for anything she could grasp onto, while her legs paddled hard against the unseen force dragging her down. A panicked cry escaped her throat when she sank ever deeper, and she realized that she wasn’t underwater any longer. Albeit with some flailing, she was drifting again, having descended not into anything’s stomach or crushing depths, but an undercurrent of spirit energy—a vast stream of interlacing crimson and black tendrils.

The negative Lifestream. Sephiroth’s Lifestream, as it had been back on Gaia. 

Reflexively balling her hands into fists, Tifa waited for shrieks of agony and every awful, tortured thought belonging to the souls that comprised this stream to assail her senses. She waited, but all she heard were whispers; murmurs too unintelligible to decipher, and for the most part, not wholly given to any specific emotion. They came in chanting waves, fading in and out like the memory of a rite or prayer long forgotten, and although she tried to remain on high alert, the sound lulled Tifa back down. More than that, she was struck anew with how very soul-tired she truly was. Closing her eyes, she let her arms and legs hang limp. An idea of being freed from all her burdens—of simply dispersing—wormed its way into her thoughts once more, but she quickly rejected it. Exhaustion alone didn’t justify admitting defeat. It dawned on her that perhaps the negative Lifestream was not necessarily constructed only of torment, but of that very defeat. Containing all those lives Sephiroth had taken and enthralled, this was firstly a place of resignation, whether to madness, sickness, hate, despair, or the man himself.

Further down the flow carried her, until she felt her feet alight on an even floor. Glancing back up the way she’d come, she saw that the negative stream formed a broad, vertical helix that reached up to and just barely pierced the watery ceiling where it had pulled her under. At ground level, off to her right, it flowed forward without gaining or losing altitude. Unable to perceive any other path, Tifa warily followed it. All she could see was a dark expanse lit very dimly in the Lifestream’s presence. There was nowhere else to go, but it wasn’t long before she came to a point where the corrupted river curved back around. Looking over her shoulder, Tifa now noticed that it ran back to rejoin the helix, forming an entrapping loop. She attempted to wade through but was transported back into the loop’s center when she’d made it about halfway across. One step too far, and a flash of blinding light reassigned her next one to where she’d started.

After that, the hushed whispers abruptly ceased, and the hairs on the back of Tifa’s head stood on end. She’d gathered enough to know that he was eventually going to appear and steeled herself as best she could, but it did nothing to soothe her dread. Anytime Sephiroth felt the need to be more than a goading voice in the back of her head, some new unholy terror befell her. 

As if her apprehension itself had summoned him, he materialized only a precious few feet in front of her. 

Instinctively, Tifa stepped back. 

Sephiroth smirked slightly at her reaction but maintained their distance. “The very cradle of humanity is before us,” he stated, seemingly pleased. “What shall we do with them?”

Tifa shook her head in the negative, bewildered that he’d bothered to ask or include her, but knowing it was rhetorical all the same. His intentions for these human worlds would be no different than any other—destroy, consume, and corrupt. And it probably meant that time was already running short for them to plan and mount a defense. “Nothing,” she replied. “I’m not doing anything with _you._ ” 

His expression softened at her words, regarding her with unmistakable pity, his scheming malice and steely glare fading to unmask solemnity; sorrow. “…Why take pains to protect those so far beneath you, Tifa? What do you imagine they can become to you?” he questioned her, the condescension she was accustomed to hearing from him entirely absent. 

Doing a double take, she answered the suggestion he’d made in times past instead, retorting, “I won’t follow you anywhere.” Why was he looking at her like that, as if he were sincere—as if he _cared_? That was impossible. And why did it make her feel more trapped and overwhelmed than if he’d come to inflict more grief as she’d expected?  Throat tight with trepidation and confusion, she firmly reiterated, “I don’t want anything to do with you,” forcing more rage than she presently felt into her voice. 

Sephiroth nodded once and vanished. 

Tifa turned in a full circle, confirming that she was alone and still inside the negative Lifestream’s loop. Running back to the far end in hopes that an escape had opened up, she found the energy flow had instead grown wider. Not only that, it was rapidly constricting. Panting, she scurried back to the center. She didn’t want to think about what would happen when it caught up to her, but it was closing in fast. Crouching down, she covered her head and squeezed her eyes shut. All she’d done to wind up here was fall asleep. Logically, she just had to wake up to get out. When the panic became too much, or when the stream overtook her, she would be alright, wouldn’t she? 

But waiting didn’t work out quite as planned. Cold tendrils wrapped around her wrists when the dark spirit energy reached her, and she remained. They pried her hands away from her head and coiled around her forearms and biceps, pulling her to stand. She strained against them and tried to break into a sprint when they’d forced her most of the way up, but they held. Her heart pounded mercilessly, and hot tears threatened the corners of her eyes, but there was still no reprieve. 

When she was fully upright, dark-clad arms snaked around her midriff from behind, drawing her near so that her upper back rested flush against his chest. 

“Don’t—” she started but knew too well it was futile. 

Sephiroth’s wing dropped over and around her, blocking out the sight of his Lifestream; of anything that wasn’t him. Long silver strands fell over her shoulder as he leaned into her, murmuring, “Tifa, forsake your past ambitions; they are already dead. Accept that you have surpassed humanity. You _must._ ” 

“No, I won’t,” she defied him, just barely above a whisper.

“Perhaps not _yet,_ ” he conceded, “but you can only delude yourself for so long. When that delusion fails you, I’ll be there…Tell me what you believe in then.” 

Lurching forward to tear herself from his grasp, her momentum caused her to bolt upright, greeted only by the night-dimmed hazmat cabin. She threw her legs over the side of the bed, squeezing the mattress’ edge in both hands, trying to ground herself in the tangible, conscious present. It was a dream—nothing but a nightmare, fabricating what she’d expect him to say to discourage her; just her anxiety playing around because why wouldn’t it? She was on the cusp of finally fighting back, and even the most wonderful changes could be frightening.   

Comforting though that thought wanted to be, she knew it was a lie, and she couldn’t pretend otherwise. Not this time; the stakes were too high.

Bodily, she hadn’t gone anywhere. That much was true. She’d been in her own headspace at first, but rather than invading her mind, it was like Sephiroth had stolen her away into his own this time. Aghast, Tifa stared blankly out her window into the medical bay proper, her field of vision temporarily lost in the sight of a watery ceiling and crimson and black streaks that had breached it, as if piercing through a thin, fragile veil separating two realities. The cost of Sephiroth having healed her—the root of why she felt that some nebulous force was clinging onto her—was suddenly crystal clear. Hidden behind her total physical recovery, she could now feel how he’d bonded a small part of her subconsciousness to his, leaving a boundary so flimsy it was almost meaningless. The only saving grace was that it felt compartmentalized; separate from where she sheltered her friends. Why he hadn’t gone after them, she could only guess. 

She knew she’d misjudged one crucial thing, though—she was in fact “bait”, as Aron had put it.  Since the end of Gaia, Sephiroth had always been just behind her in one sense or another. He didn’t have to follow her in person to pick up on where she was or what she was doing. For any of her plans to work, Tifa now believed she was going to have to come completely clean. Her connections to Sephiroth, the suspiciously Jenova-like changes she was undergoing—they needed to know everything, because he knew everything. This made trying to warn the rest of humanity extremely precarious for her, and time was running so very, very short, but what choice did she have? Missing information—anything he had that they didn’t—could kill them all.

 


	11. Across the Bow

A light tapping noise jolted Tifa from her half-napping state. Cold waves of dread shuddered down her spine, raising gooseflesh on her arms. Her grip on consciousness had nearly slipped, and sleeping wasn’t such a great idea anymore. Perhaps it would have been restful on the second try, but the alternative was that she’d wind up slipping into that chasm Sephiroth had seeded into the back of her mind again. Surviving without rest for a while was more palatable by far; both it and its creator would be gone soon enough.

Louder and far less patient, another two taps prompted her to look up.

Waiting and fidgeting outside her window was a petite, pale-skinned, auburn-haired woman. If not for the four stripes on her right arm, Tifa would have mistaken her for a twelve-year-old. She had bright, wide ultramarine eyes that sort of reminded her of Cloud’s from way back when they were kids, and barely stood five feet tall. An expedition to make contact with another planet didn’t seem like a place for children, but she admittedly knew nothing about how these people viewed raising them. If there was some kind of educational cadet’s program, maybe the person waving her over _was_ that young. 

Reluctantly, she stood and approached the glass barrier. “Hey, you probably shouldn’t be playing—" 

“Finally,” the woman interjected, her voice a frustrated and very adult contralto—not at all the girlish lilt Tifa had expected to hear. “If you hadn’t been snoring like that, I’d have thought you were comatose. Name’s Della. I do the medical poking and scraping when they have me on board. Oh, and before you ask, I’m thirty-two, and yes, it’s been more than two years since I passed my exams. It’s always a question with newbies, no matter where they come from…Let’s see,” she sighed, pawing at a tablet similar to what Aron had carried.

Attempting to shirk off how poorly she’d sized up her new visitor, she asked, “…Was I completely asleep?” 

“Well, you weren’t quite drooling yet, if that makes any difference,” Della quipped, attaching her tablet to the window. 

Recent changes—ones she’d quickly grown to loathe pondering—should have allowed her to stay awake without too much trouble, but she’d already passed out again regardless. It was yet another thing she couldn’t control, but worrying would have to wait. She was safe and sound in her own mind for the time being. Fretting about it would be a waste of emotional energy she had little to spare, and she had plenty of work ahead to distract her. “At least there’s that…I’m Tifa.” 

“So I’ve heard,” Della smiled. “Tifa, this is terribly rude of me, but I’m going to have to ask for a few strands from that lovely mane of yours. If possible, please try to get them up by the follicles. I’m going to open a drawer on your side. Just drop them in there.” 

She stared back at the other woman. It was an innocuous request, and Aron had said something about minor tests, but, “Why?” 

“Because the ship’s going to dock soon, and I think you’d prefer walking out of that cramped hole on your own two feet over riding in a metal box. I’ve worked up a thing that might help with that, but I need something off of you to test first.” 

Embarrassed, Tifa turned aside and winced as she yanked out a small cluster of hairs from her bangs. Just under the window and above her knees, a compartment hissed open, and she dropped them in. “There. All set.” 

The drawer retracted and clicked shut. Inside the wall, what sounded like a sort of ventilation mechanism kicked on, followed by a deep thrumming. Della narrowed her eyes at her tablet when it sounded moments later, presumably with test results. “Fuck me sideways. I was sure Sudira had broken into the Admirals’ sauce again, but he wasn’t kidding.” 

“What is it? What’s happening…?” Tifa trailed off, lamenting out loud without meaning to, and instantly wished she could take the second part back. She didn’t want to wind up having to confess that she sucked the life out of things by mere touch, but she’d just let on that she was perfectly aware of something amiss beyond what they’d already observed. What she’d seen of their technology instilled hope that they’d be able to help her turn it off, but that didn’t mean she could trust them to understand that it was never intentional, or that she wasn’t born like that. 

Della clasped her hands together. “When the Commander briefed me, he said that you’d been exposed to extraordinary levels of bio-tectonic radiation. He told me that he suspected something like symbiosis. It sounded mad, but here the readings are…It’s enough to give us an inkling for how you’re not dead from it, at any rate.” 

Bio-tectonic. Tifa rolled the word around in her mind, discouraged. It was unmistakably a technical term for the Lifestream or Mako cooked up by people who didn’t believe in its spiritual essence. If she tried to share the more personal parts of her story—those about her internal relationship with her friends, the concept of a planetary consciousness, or about Sephiroth’s telepathic projection—they wouldn’t buy a single word, would they? She could probably trim the fat about her friends, but the other two were fundamental to how Sephiroth’s power and his growing fixation on her might pose a threat to them. “Symbiosis,” Tifa repeated, latching onto the word to slow her racing thoughts. That was a place to start. She’d just have listen carefully to the people around her and attempt to get by using words they’d accept.   

“You’re one for the books. Discovering how life flourishes in different parts of the universe is one of our missions, but to uncover something like this in one of our own is off the charts nutty…Anyhow, I’m sending the drawer back your way. There’s a bangle in it that should dampen the radiation. If I’ve calibrated it right, you’ll be a lot less shiny,” Della replied. 

Tifa scooped up the bangle when the compartment opened on her side again, sliding it onto her right wrist. A plain, silvery loop with three tiny, white lights on the side, it was inconspicuous and not uncomfortable. Staticky warmth pulsed where it touched her skin, but it was essentially painless. After a moment, the lights flashed and then lit up green one by one. 

Della poked at her tablet a few times. “Good, good. Better than I projected. Now I can come in there and we can talk like normal people. I also need to jab you as a safety precaution. Samples and vaccines. The air in there is registering clean, but we can’t be too careful about pathogens since you’re not from around here.” 

The door’s lock released, and it wheeled backward on a track Tifa hadn’t been able to see when they’d brought her in. Della rounded the corner and entered, leaving the exit wide open. A stray, invasive thought about making a break for it skittered across Tifa’s mind, and she cringed. That would be completely senseless. No one was holding her prisoner—not really—and running would be self-defeating. If a time came when they gave her a good reason not to cooperate, she could deal with it then. What it would mean, if it came to that, though... 

“Oh no. You look like you’re about to cry,” Della suddenly blurted out.

Tifa wrinkled her nose and blinked rapidly to stifle the urge, but her eyes only stung hotter, allowing a few droplets to escape. “I’m sorry. It’s been a very long trip. I’m just ready for all of it to be over.” 

“There’s never an in-between, is there?”

“Hm?” 

“No in-between. Either things are going perfectly copacetic, or they’re balls to the walls trying to eat your brain. Although, I can’t imagine being in your shoes, whole planet blown away and all that,” Della commented while lifting up a slat on the wall to reveal an arm-sized hole with a cuff. “I can’t imagine being the last one. I think I’d lose my mind.” 

Tifa gave a light shrug, swiping again at her eyes. “I just try to keep remembering everyone. Sometimes they feel so far away, but I keep going. I don’t always think I have it in me, but what else can I do? There’s nothing else…” 

“You’re a better person than I am, then. I don’t think I’d give a damn about what happened to the rest of the universe if I were the last one left. Now, if you’ll just pick whichever arm you like the least to shove into the wall there, that will take care of the samples and injections,” Della instructed. 

“How bad is this going to hurt?” 

“You’ll feel like you got stung ten times at once for two seconds. After that, not much.”

Looking away, Tifa jammed her left arm into the cuff. The device gave off a _ka-chunk_ sound, like an oversized stapler, and she hissed, sucking a breath in through her teeth.

“Huh…” Della intoned, holding a hand over her mouth while she intently studied new results coming in from the blood samples.

“What’s the matter?” Tifa prodded again, retracting her offended limb. 

“Nothing. You’re disease-free as far as I can see, and now you’re vaccinated against most of what you could catch from us. Something’s a little off about some of your cellular structure. It looks mostly normal but...maybe…maybe that’s just how the symbiosis expresses itself?” Della finished in a perturbed half-whisper, shaking her head.

* * *

 

After forcing herself to swallow a light breakfast, Tifa followed Della to the _Passage’s_ exit terminal, and into a docking bay. They’d arrived in humanity’s home system, which they called Eos. On the way in, Della had given a skeletal explanation for how they were organized. All three planets they currently occupied had an orbital station like this one. Each acted as a base for a branch of the stellar navy, which was split up into Research, Investigations, and Defense. Research was charged with exploring the known universe, looking for life and valuable resources, including anything they could use to assist in their terraforming efforts. The people who’d found her were from Investigations, and this was their station, orbiting the second planet they’d successfully terraformed. They were responsible for monitoring any major changes in the local neighborhood and following up on reports of possibly sentient life Research handed off to them. Lastly, Defense was the genuinely military heart of the whole organization, specializing in weaponry, policing activities, and medical science. Because they’d never encountered a hostile race, Defense was mostly dedicated to pursuits of medicine and energy development alongside Research. Alien disease was generally regarded as the greatest security threat; not invasion.

Tifa had wanted to ask Della a little more. What were their planets’ names? What was everyday life like living on each of them? How did people there make a living, and what did they do for fun? Were there any holidays? She’d tried to ask, but the words wouldn’t dislodge themselves from the tip of her tongue, anchored by a lead weight around her heart. Everyday life—doing normal work, making friends, building families, taking up hobbies—she felt so detached from all of it. None of it was for her; not anymore. Even if—when—she succeeded in destroying Sephiroth, thinking about the future beyond that made something in the pit of her stomach recoil. All she could see there when she tried to look was this monstrous, empty void, tinged and bound by everything she’d suffered through and everyone she’d lost. 

“Hey, did you hear what I just said?” Della stopped, poking her shoulder. 

“No…I don’t think I did,” Tifa admitted.

“You have a conference with our Admirals in about an hour. Sudira just got done presenting his findings from your interview, and they want to talk to you yesterday,” she repeated. “In the meantime, I’ll take you to see your new room. You can freshen up there if you want.” 

“Will I be locked in this one?” 

“No. No locks, no excessive surveillance. You’ve been cleared as friendly. Take that bangle off and half the station’s security detail will probably body-slam you, though. Not to offend, but it doubles as a tracking device. Basic mobility clearance is a matter of efficiency, but trust takes time,” Della explained.

A speck of amused relief peeked through Tifa’s darkened mood. “Honestly, I feel the same about trusting all of you.” 

“It’s not like the first place we threw you _was_ somewhere we could have dissected you at a moment’s notice. Oh wait; we did exactly that thing.” 

Tifa stopped cold, indifferent to the people weaving their way around her. “Would you do something like that?”

With an exaggerated eyeroll, Della walked back to retrieve her. “Really now, you took me seriously? Are you going to tell me that emergency surgery wasn’t a thing back on your world, or should I just assume that you were chewing your worst-case scenario into a fine paste?”

Heat welled up in Tifa’s face, but the tension lifted from her shoulders. In spite of her best efforts to dismiss most of them, her mind had been zipping from one terrifying possibility to the next since she’d arrived. What she couldn’t brush away, it dawned on her, was that ShinRa’s atrocities hadn’t really been that long ago. Exploitation in the name of discovery was still too familiar a concept. How could she not fear she might find more of the same? “I’m afraid the worst case was real for a long time where I came from. It didn’t happen to me, but…” 

ShinRa had imprisoned and used so many people she’d known. Cloud. Aerith. Vincent. Nanaki. _Sephiroth,_ however deeply she resented him _._ If ShinRa hadn’t made him into an experimental toy, Gaia and everyone she loved would still be alive. The dominoes had never stopped falling since then, dropping one upon the other until their combined weight had crashed down right on top of her. The damned company no longer existed, and she still hated them—an impotent, useless hatred that did little else but add insult to injury. 

“Alright, well…we’ll leave that alone, then,” Della sighed, failing to restrain her irritation. “Unless you’re secretly some kind of tentacled horror from the old world, try not to worry too much about it.” 

They hurried the rest of the way down the hall from the docking bay in silence, turning a corner that let out into a broad walkway. Overhead, a transparent ceiling revealed tiny streaks of light buzzing past the station—more of their ships or other transports, Tifa guessed. Aside from being constructed of polished, chrome-like materials, the path ahead itself was jarringly reminiscent of Junon, lined with three and four-story cubical buildings that connected with the ceiling. A few entrances along the ground level were open, sporting signs that looked like advertisements, but Tifa couldn’t read them. Some of the characters were similar to those she knew, but not enough to try to decipher. Still, if she wandered into one and found a materia merchant, it wouldn’t feel out of place. The more she saw, the more evident Eos’ connection with Gaia became; as if these people truly were once part of the same collective consciousness. 

Home. Someone’s home. Like hers, but not for her. An invisible dagger twisted itself deeper into her heart.   

“Over here,” Della motioned, quickly trotting across the walkway. 

Tifa followed, having to skip the last step to avoid a small hovering vehicle that came whizzing by behind her, nearly clipping the backs of her heels. She glared after it as its rider continued onward, weaving sloppily through the other pedestrians with about as much regard they had given her. “Does that happen often around here?” 

“Nope. That guy’s probably going to find himself in lock up sooner rather than later.” Stepping up to one of the closed doors, Della pressed her palm onto a smooth surface near the lock, and it clicked once. “Okay, now you do the same. That will register you to this building. When you get in, you’ll go to the fifth room to the right on the second floor. I’ll wait down here.”

“I’ll try to be quick,” Tifa said. The door clicked under her palm, and she noticed that one of the lights on her bangle blinked once. 

The narrow stairwell led up to an equally cramped hallway. At least it was cleaner than Junon, she mused to herself. The men that had lived in places like this back there usually weren’t content until everything was coated in a layer of dirty clothes and stickiness. Counting the doors, she found that hers was located at the very end. Stepping lightly so as not to disturb anyone, she approached it and palmed the hand-reading mechanism, and it opened revealing a sparsely furnished bedroom. Off to her left, a sliding glass door with a thick, white curtain hung in front of it concealed the washroom. Tifa pulled the curtain and the door aside and frowned inwardly. Her nerves were getting to her. Amongst all her much heavier concerns, she’d somehow allowed a split second of panic to slip in over whether or not she’d know how to use the bathrooms here. Sure, things were a little differently-shaped, but there was no mistaking what they were—shower, toilet, and a small vanity with a sink. 

“I need to stop this,” she chastised herself, flipping up a lever on the wall next to the sink. As hoped, it turned on the water, and she adjusted it until it ran icy. 

Vigorously, she splashed her face, paying special attention to the burning sensation lingering around her eyes. When she was satisfied that she’d made enough of a sopping mess on the counter and at her feet, she shut the faucet off and grabbed a thin, gray cloth that was folded up neatly in one corner. Staring herself down in the mirror, she dabbed away the droplets. It was the first time she’d seen her own reflection this clearly since her _encounter_   with a distant moon’s Lifestream. The red highlights in her eyes had grown remarkably brighter, but she still passed as human. She _still was_ human, she corrected herself. So much Mako exposure was bound to have the SOLDIER effect or something like it. She could carry herself to her next meeting without worrying about appearances. 

_“Seems fine to me,”_ Cloud softly chimed in. 

Tifa took a small step back, mildly startled. “I keep wishing I looked a little messier. Or at least tired. Anything to match how I really feel.” 

_“Want to look different?”_ he asked. 

“Not so sure I have the time…What’s this about, Cloud?”

_“We’ve been trying to think of how we can help. You can change how you look now, right? What if you could let one of us take over?”_

“…I don’t know,” she started. She’d spent so much time trying to pretend that those changes weren’t happening, she hadn’t really considered how she could use them in her favor. Wild ideas like shapeshifting and transferring motor control of her body to one of her friends hadn’t occurred to her. Now that she did, the risks seemed just as outlandish, and all the more terrible. “What if I got something wrong and wound up absorbing you instead? Erasing you forever…I could never forgive myself if I did that...” 

_“It’ll be alright,”_ Aerith reassured her, sounding far more collected than the last time Tifa had heard from her. That was a relief; she tended to take her distress as a sign of exactly how hopeless her situation was panning out. _“Melding with another soul means taking over them and tearing them apart so that they’re forced to become a part of you. Even with everything living in here, you’ve still managed not to. Besides, this is the opposite of that. This is more like setting yourself aside to make room for another.”_

“Okay. Okay, here it goes…” Trusting that Aerith knew what she was talking about, Tifa exhaled and concentrated on her memory of Cloud; on his presence within her psyche. She felt him carefully slipping forward in her mind. He was there, closer to the forefront, closer to-- 

He was in front of her. Right there in the mirror, staring back at her in reciprocated shock. She stepped forward again, caressing the glass surface with shaky fingertips. Not her own, but Cloud’s, thicker and well-calloused from years of sword-fighting. She was still the one moving the body—it was still her—but he was as conscious and present in mind as she was, sharing the same space. “Cloud…?” she uttered his name, and his voice spoke it. 

Overwhelmed and dizzy, she resumed full control, instantly morphing back into herself. Control. Cloud and Aerith had just shown her part of these cursed abilities she could actually control! Tifa wanted to laugh. She wanted to scream, curse, run halfway around the station and back, and do it all over again. She wanted to break down and sob for hours, because she’d just seen Cloud in the flesh for the first time since he’d passed. Not just a voice in her head or a post-apocalyptic specter that seemed to imitate a body, but a physical being in the waking world. 

Instead, she resumed drying her hands and face, reminded herself, “I’m not alone in this. I’m not,” in a shaky breath, and departed.

* * *

 

A few miles from the unit that contained her room, the walkway dead-ended at a silver wall. Only a set of double doors perforated it at ground level, guarded by two unabashedly bored but well-armed younger men. While Della approached them, Tifa caught herself staring up at the ceiling again, watching for the colorful darts of light that occasionally streaked past. There was always some kind of traffic up there, making her wonder exactly how large their fleet had to be. 

“Lieutenant Della Emila, this can’t be _her_ , right? She looks kind of like a beefed-up version of my sister’s babysitter. The way the brass is talking, we expected you show up hauling something with an extra head,” one of the guards laughed.

“Or wings, or a tail, or maybe a proboscis—” the other one piped up, but Della cut him off. 

“Sorry guys, she’s just another plain, boring human. Now, do you want to let us in so we’re not late, or do you want back on shit-scraping duty for the next three weeks? Because if that’s what I get, I’m dragging the both of you down with me.” 

Tifa grimaced at the guards’ disappointment with the fact that she was one of them, but the tightness in her chest loosened for how Della had referred to her. Just another boring human. Yes, that was the truth she was going to carry with her to meet their leadership. The only truth she cared for. 

“Hard-ass,” the first one snorted. Both turned to disengage the lock then, and silently held the doors open. 

Beyond the entrance, a blue-lit hallway extended before them for about twenty feet. A few doors lined the sides, all of which were expectedly locked down. 

“Sorry about the Privates’ display back there. They get restless too easily. Those two in particular are serial discipline cases,” Della apologized while they fast-walked to the end. 

Tifa bowed her head slightly. “…It can’t be helped.” She was a novelty here, and probably would be for a while.

When they reached very end, the hallway opened up into a wide, rectangular conference room. The entirety of the opposing side was constructed of a similar type of window to what she’d seen in her medical enclosure, extending up to the ceiling. Every few feet, there were tablets attached, and directly over them in the middle, a huge, translucent map was displayed. Although the wording was unintelligible, she was able to discern that the three, larger glowing orbs toward the bottom were meant to indicate the planets and their respective stations. There was a fourth, similar sized orb that bore no labels. Tifa guessed that it was probably their abandoned world home world. About a quarter of the way across the map to the upper right, a red dot urgently blinked. There were two others just like it, but they were each much further away. Dotted lines flashed and vanished between them, seeming to show different routes between the points. Perhaps they had something in common. Maybe they were proposed mission destinations? 

Shifting her attention away from the star map, Tifa took in an even greater spectacle outside. Dozens of spacecrafts were lined up to form a great bow that pointed outward from the station. Larger dreadnoughts—smooth, glossy, elliptical capsules at least a mile long each, bearing innumerable lines of lights and portals—were situated in the center of the fleet. Smaller ships were docked alongside them, sorted in descending size on either side.

 “Lockhart! I see Emila was able to break you out of the nuke tank,” Aron greeted her.

Sloughing off her half-dreamy haze and prying her eyes away from the window, Tifa forced a friendly smile. “It’s good to be out. I was getting a little bored,” she lied. If only that were true. Boredom would have meant that nothing had happened; that she hadn’t been abducted out of her own mind. 

“I wish I could tell you it was going to get better, but our Admirals are probably going to rehash everything I did and then some. Speaking of, I should probably tell you who they are and what they do.”

“That could be helpful,” Tifa agreed. 

“Alright, so Admiral Nessia Santri is my C.O. She’s over Investigations. She was the one barking orders at us when you first arrived. She’s an asshole and she loves getting her hands dirty. When she retires, we’ll probably throw a funeral even if she’s still alive. Then there’s Admiral Luthi Nia, over Research. He’s too damn young for his rank and a total prick, but he’s basically a genius, so we put up with him. Lastly, there’s Admiral Kalle Ruri, over Defense. Ruri’s an older guy whose idea of a stern reprimand involves drinking you under the table. Don’t be surprised if he wants you to mix him a drink after all of this. He’s curious what a barkeep from light years away might serve up.” 

“Maybe I’ll just offer. It’s been way too long.” This time, she felt her lips turn up slightly of their own accord. It would be nice, just for once, to be able to do something so natural and familiar again. To make it familiar again. 

“Sudira, they’ve arrived,” Della grabbed his attention. “Tifa, you’ll be sitting on the side of the table with your back to the window. We’ll be standing along the wall.” 

As instructed, she settled down at the conference table with her back to the window display and the massive port beyond it, folding her hands together in front of her. She did her best to avoid staring while the three figures she recognized from Aron’s explanation filed into their own seats directly across from her. Nia wasn’t much older than her, with blond hair, pale gray eyes, and a harsh face to belie his youth. His uniform matched his eyes, and a ridiculous golden medal on his breast pocket was the only thing distinguishing him from an average-looking technician. Santri was a lean woman with close-cropped platinum hair, bright green eyes, and a uniform nearly identical to Aron’s, again with the exception of an ornate medal. Dark bags under her eyes betrayed that she was probably sleep deprived. Ruri was a husky older man as promised, balding on top, with muttonchops growing down his face. Ironically, his all-black uniform was the tidiest, with all stripes and medallions dutifully placed and nary a wrinkle in sight.  This was it. Time to come clean about as much as she possibly could. About as much as they’d believe. 

Santri was the first to address her, “Tifa Lockhart?” 

“Yes, that’s me,” she affirmed.

“We’ve been over the recording that Commander Sudira gave us several times, and I must confess that if we hadn’t stumbled upon you the way we had, a lot of it would be difficult to believe. Not to mention your bizarre medical state. No one should be able to survive that kind of radioactive exposure, much less become a living emission point. But here you are…and here we are, and we still have a lot of questions.” 

Tifa stared hard at her hands, awash in shame. “There were some things I left out, because I was afraid you’d get the wrong idea about me. I’m still afraid, but…” 

Santri raised an incredulous eyebrow. “But?” 

Looking to Aron instead, she revealed, “Sephiroth already knows everything. I lied about not being ‘bait’. I wanted to believe I could make it true, but he’s always…always on me, somehow.” 

Aron exchanged a quick glance with Santri, and then, “Yeah, don’t sweat it. That was pretty predictable from the readings I got.” 

Leaning forward with interlaced fingers, Santri continued, “Define ‘somehow’.” 

“Mentally. Telepathically. Dreams.” Tifa nearly groaned in response to the words as they left her mouth. So much for figuring out terms they’d be more comfortable with. “I know I’m asking you to believe me about voices in my head. I know it sounds ridiculous.” 

 "Well,” Admiral Ruri started, adjusting his position and clearing his throat, “everything we’ve found about you so far can be termed ‘unreal’, but we can’t just ignore what’s right in front of us, now can we? Assuming this Sephiroth fellow exists, and assuming you've given us an accurate account of his capabilities, what's a few mind games to the mix?” 

Tifa’s stomach sank. _If_   Sephiroth exists. Mind games. That’s where they still were? Trying to determine if the greatest danger to their existence—to all creation—was even real? Referring to his capacity for manipulation and destruction as mere games?

Admiral Nia leaned back in his chair, smirking slightly and putting one foot up on the table’s edge, allowing him to stare down his nose at her without having to stand. Petty. Self-assured. Tifa already disliked him. “Regardless if the threat we’re dealing with is ultimately from you or this other figure we’re waiting to see materialize, the solution is the same.” Pausing, he gestured to the other two, lifting one hand slightly. “May I?” 

“I don’t see the harm,” Ruri replied. 

Santri’s neutral expression faded into a tight-lipped scowl, but she nodded once. 

“Commander Sudira may have filled you in on a little bit, but there’s a low-orbit device we use to siphon and transport tectonic energy from other worlds. Nothing’s stopping us from pointing a few of those at something other than a planet. Assuming this friend of yours derives his power from those energies, we need only take them away. We’ve already taken the precaution of setting them up all around this station. They can be activated and running at full power within nanoseconds.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis. “We’ll bleed him dry.” 

“He’s not a friend,” Tifa quickly retorted, correcting him.

“Oh, I’m sure. Just rest assured that if he shows up in Eos, he’s as good as dead. Which leaves us to contend with you,” Nia finished. 

Santri cast a sharp glare at Nia, and then set her sights back on Tifa. “I apologize. The Research Admiral has clearly failed to review the newer piece of intel that we believe clears you. Yesterday, around the time we were processing you, some of our long-distance probes recorded what we believe was the destruction of a third world. At a first glance, it merely appeared to be an unfortunate run-in with some over-sized space debris; a natural event. However, rather than continue the life cycle, that planet’s bio-tectonic energies converged onto a single point and vanished. After that, we have nothing but interference.” 

“That’s him. That’s how…” Tifa breathed but couldn’t bring herself to say more. Her head was swimming with a cluster of grim realizations. She now knew that the system of Eos existed only because its founders were stealing the life blood of distant stars for their own use. She tried to make herself think of it as a transfusion, but the process came off as ghoulish and their tools were essentially flying Mako reactors. It was possible they were being slow and careful, but for all she knew, they were simply sapping one planet and moving on to the next. Worse, Sephiroth had taken at least three worlds. Not that she hadn’t known what he was up to, but to hear it in such plain words, and see it expressed as three little angry red dots on a map made her mind go instantly numb. Innumerable lives were being consumed in premature judgement days at hands of someone completely unworthy to make that kind of call.  

“Tifa,” Santri gently coaxed her back into focus, “can you tell me more about your connection to Sephiroth?” 

Hunched over slightly, Tifa began, “It started…it probably really started when I adopted a little boy back home. This kid was different; he—” She paused, distracted by a sharp itch on her wrist. The skin near her bangle had turned red, and tiny, pin-point blisters had formed. Once they were finished here, she’d have to show Della. It was probably an allergic reaction. “I’m sorry. This kid was someone that Sephiroth had created—a part of himself. He used that part to trick my friends and I into helping him.” Tifa stopped again, sighing heavily. This was going to be impossible without explaining the Lifestream; without completely redefining their understanding of life and death. 

But abruptly, the Admirals, Aron, and Della were no longer so interested in what she had to say. All five had risen from their places and were cautiously advancing on the window, moving past her as if she no longer existed. 

“What the hell is _that?_ ” Della mumbled. 

Whipping around, Tifa spotted what had drawn them out. From an indeterminate point in space, a long, arced blade of light was approaching the port. Descending rapidly relative to their view, it sheared through the largest dreadnought lengthwise upon contact, slicing it clean in half. Minor shockwaves emanated from the impact site, triggering small explosions in the two halves and sending chunks of debris hurtling into the adjacent ships nearby. 

Without so much as a gasp, Ruri punched several icons on one of the tablets, and began issuing orders, “Control room, we’ve just gone hot. I want radar, lidar, and sonar scanning for the source of that strike immediately. As soon as you find it, power up every single siphon cannon we’ve erected to maximum intake and don’t shut them down until we’re sucking vacuum.” 

Holding herself, trembling, Tifa waited for that familiar, mocking voice to emerge in the back of her head. She waited to hear him say that it was time; that he was coming. To hear that there would be no reprieve for humankind, that their weapons would fail against him as all else had and always would, and that she should simply submit to him and follow. 

Only a dead, heavy silence and her own bated breath greeted her.


	12. Outbreak

_“The Cetra were attacked by the virus and went mad…transforming into monsters.”_

—Ifalna

* * *

 

Fear had always served as one of the humans’ greatest motivators. Their most exploitable foible. When faced with forces beyond their shallow comprehension, they invariably fell into helpless disarray and self-sabotage. These advanced ones were still subject to the same animal impulses, doing little else with their lives than feeding and defecating, their tri-planetary empire adhered together with sins surpassing even ShinRa’s. The Lifestreams from planets he destroyed lived on as part of his being, but these humans plucked them from the heavens for mere consumption, to their ultimate decay. She would be displeased, in a word, once the scope of their Mako-gluttony was laid bare. And he would show her.

But first, they needed to be afraid.

Masamune’s downward swing parted space and time before him, opening a rift overlooking one of their fleets. Another swift turn and a sweeping upward slice ejected an energy blade through the gate, elongating until it stretched the full length of the oblong monstrosity he’d targeted. It bisected the craft perfectly upon impact, sparking explosions and spilling clusters of unsuspecting bodies into the vacuum. Most importantly, it kindled their fear. She was also afraid. It was dead weight sinking into the pit of her stomach, and a tight tremor gripping her spine. And there was something else. Her wrist itched and burned where she’d donned a device meant to suppress her magnetism for spirit energy, controlling it artificially.  

Controlling only what they could perceive, but so be it. He had provoked their imaginations’ terror, but Tifa would be the one to carry it through to madness. Perhaps she could be the one to judge them, care as she did for the stars’ agony. He would not stand in her way if it came to that. When it came to that—it would, and he would guide her through it.

He had also been aware when she’d permitted Cloud a physical presence. Seething from that moment still, he yearned to remind Cloud how of impotent he remained; to draw him out and annihilate him entirely, but he would abstain for now. He’d long sensed her old compatriots’ fumbling efforts to restrain her transformation and deny his presence in her mind. The former was amusing; the latter, impossible. Now, they’d instead latched onto her newfound power, hoping to manipulate it to their own ends. He wondered if she could imagine the toll that allowing Cloud or the others to borrow her form would exact upon them. If she could withstand it when the time came.

Clenching his hand into a tight fist, the rift he’d shorn open obeyed him, knitting the light years between them back into place. The time for him to breach that space was growing near, but it was not just yet. He traced the fading, jagged white line that remained with the tips of his fingers. Once the truth of her existence swallowed her up, he would fulfill his oath to be there with her. Although she’d received his words as a taunt, she’d soon behold the depth of his sincerity.

Soon, she would see him as he truly was as well.

* * *

 

_“We got a lock on the source for about five milliseconds. We were pulling something in, but it just vanished. I don’t…I’ve never seen…Sir, no one knows what to make of this,”_ a shaky, cracking voice replied from Control.

“Feed us the data,” Ruri ordered.

The window displaying the broad galactic map morphed into a more localized view, splitting into several panes with different visual readouts and endless, streaming lists of numerical measurements. Each one showed its own version of an elliptical hotspot that had erupted from a single point, fired off the beam they’d all witnessed, and then blinked out as if it hadn’t been there—not a rapid retreat; it was simply gone.

“It’s almost like an entire sun just popped in, fired off a solar flare at us for shits and giggles, and then said, ‘oh, never mind’. Tifa, is this what that guy does? This is what we’re up against?” Aron protested, unable to mask his dismay. “That big boy out there was fully shielded, too…”

A bag of rocks dropped into her stomach. Renewed tension crawled its way up her back, clamping down on her shoulders and wiring a fresh kink into her neck. “Maybe he left once he saw you had something that could hurt him,” Tifa offered. She so wanted to believe it was possible, but faith escaped her. What could stop Sephiroth from peeking through space like that again and again, flaying off chunks of their fleet, their station—everything—until they were left completely adrift and defenseless? Come to think of it, all he really had to do was destroy the siphon cannons. Why hadn’t he?

“This— _this_ —is not a small amount of energy,” Nia squealed. Swiping frantically at one of the window tablets, he continued, “Three of the reserve tankers are near capacity! We’ll have to test its viability because of the unusual source, but we may have extracted enough tectonic energy to power all three stations for a year.”

Della crossed her arms and sighed, “Admiral Nia, sir, that’s wonderful news, but please do try to remember that energy already has a body count.”

“Real progress is priceless, Lieutenant Emila,” he sang out.

Not wanting in on the ensuing argument; not wanting to have to explain how it _all_ came at such a dire cost, Tifa wandered back to the table and plopped down where she’d been sitting before. She wanted to sucker-punch Nia for his callousness; for dredging up all the wrong people from her memory. But he had delivered good news, if only incidentally. Those mobile Mako reactors really could damage Sephiroth and had very possibly landed a critical blow in less than a second. If that wasn’t cause for something resembling hope, then nothing was. She had known that killing him was going to be hard. Complicated. She had known this. It had to come with a price; he of all people wasn’t just going to let himself be shot out of the sky—or rather, dissolved from it. With him, it could never be a cut-and-dry assassination. It had to be a war. Still, she couldn’t stop thinking of how many people that first volley alone might have murdered. How many hearts and minds were going to be shattered because she had led him here? She had no right not to count the cost.

As if to bolster her remorse, Santri motioned out the window, disrupting Della and Nia before their verbal scuffle could grow too hot-headed. “But is this going to be the result we can expect every time? If this entity can withdraw so quickly, what’s to say he won’t have fully regrouped for next time? We need to study what happened out there so we can prepare a defense that actually works, and I think we need to figure out how to entrap him…How and where do we even begin?”

“And we have no clue what kind of timetable we’re working with,” Aron added evenly, but the sweaty sheen that had formed on his brow remained.

Ruri scratched his chin, zoning out in front of the maps and charts as if trying to absorb them by osmosis. “As a precaution,” he slowly uttered, “we should bring any remaining personnel inside. No one boards a vessel unless they’re assigned for travel within the half hour.” Then, he turned to Tifa. “Miss, I think you owe us a drink. After what we’ve all seen here today, unbroken sobriety would be a bridge too far.”

“I could actually go for a few myself,” Tifa agreed, “but I can’t just stand and watch. Is there going to be a rescue mission for the people out there?”

“Of course,” Ruri grunted. “I’ll leave it up to the Lieutenant whether or not your assistance is necessary.”

Della gave a nod. “There’s going to be extensive injuries with a mess like that. We’ll take all the help we can get.”

* * *

 

The ship that Sephiroth had cut was unironically called _The Egg_. A freighter used to ferry standard dry foodstuffs from the planets to their stations, it contained nothing lethal. A large company of Privates and under-graduated cadets were usually stationed there in rotating week-long shifts, loading and unloading freight between training operations. Della’s initial briefing revealed that _The Egg’s_ shields had immediately reactivated after its destruction, forming invisible walls for both sides of its exposed innards, allowing them to restore pressure and maintain a steady oxygen supply for the survivors. Automated anti-fire measures had snuffed out all but the rare ember here and there. As wreckage went, it was neatly contained, but regretfully, the group that had been on board during the attack had been preparing to disembark, gathered at docking bays located in the center of the ship’s underbelly.

Tifa didn’t need it spelled out for her—those emergency measures had done nothing for the fact that the crew been huddled directly in the line of fire. Just as they did nothing for the bodies that drifted past the shuttle as they approached. She wasn’t allowed to wonder how the frozen, mortified faces that drew too close got that way. They couldn’t erase the stray, frenzied green wisps of spirit energy darting about, reverberating with life’s final horror and searching in vain for a home. Anyone the attack had ejected into the void—more than those it hadn’t—had probably known for all of two endless minutes that they were going to die.

_“It’s bullshit, but at least they didn’t suffer much. Space is quick,”_ Cid grumbled. Tifa knew he was trying to console her, but right now, she didn’t care. She didn’t care how fast they had or hadn’t met their demise. The bodies’ icy rigor mortis didn’t hide how young their faces were. Most of them had just barely finished growing up.

_“Cid,”_ she shot inwardly, a warning.

_“Yeah…well, just try not to go blaming yourself this time around. War always has casualties. All you can do is make sure you’re fightin’ for the right reasons. Shit, right now, I don’t think there is a wrong reason,”_ he replied.

Tifa frowned. It was too late for that argument to work on her. She already felt unbearably guilty; she hadn’t escaped the notion that she was using these people. Old emotional nerve damage resurfaced—memories of when she’d fought with Avalanche—and she felt sick. People were dying, and it was in part because she was here. In the surrounding carnage, she couldn’t help but wonder what it must feel like to be one of these cadets’ parents, looking back on their tenth birthday, and in place of happy memories, seeing nothing but an unfair, cruel halfway point. But they’d all die if she didn’t fight back, and she couldn’t do it without their help.

“I shouldn’t say it got cracked, but with things this terrible, you have to try to keep a sense of humor,” Della yammered, her words laced with nervous laughter.

“At least it was hard-boiled…” Tifa sighed, forcing herself to play along. She wasn’t innocent of laughing at her own terror on a rare occasion, but unlike Della, those moments were when she most felt like her mind was slipping. Those times, she could feel how badly the insanity wanted her all for its own, offering itself to her for relief—maybe as the only way she could ever know peace again. There was a temptation in it, because it would almost certainly mean an end.  An incomprehensible end, but an end all the same.

Della sniffled and stared at Tifa. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her cheeks streaked wet. “A bit overdone, though. Most of the yolk-stuff crumbled up and fell out. What do we do about that?”

She cast her eyes to the floor, but Della’s petrified face was already burned into her mind. “Fire the chef, hopefully.”

“Please, please promise me that you don’t work in the same kitchen,” she whimpered and then started cackling again, overcome with anger. “This whole thing is stupid. ‘The kitchen’, honestly…You did try to warn us. You really did.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t try harder…”

Della was wrong. She could have said so much more to begin with, using herself as hard evidence, but she’d been too afraid. Even while she swore that she’d do anything to defend her new-found companions, she’d been anxiety-ridden over what could happen to her in the process. She was terrified that if she dared to look at herself without compromise, inside and out, she’d be forced to agree with Sephiroth that her humanity was no more and lose her will to go on. What should have mattered most was what befell everyone else, not her. Her desire to protect everyone should have overpowered any need to belong. Again, she’d fallen into a trap of selfish conceit, too busy grieving over a life she could probably never have again or waxing bitter that it would feel misplaced if the opportunity ever arose.

She’d always been that way to one degree or another, never fully able to work it out. There were times that had been better than others, but she was no saint. Not the kind of person this situation so desperately needed. Sure, she cared about helping people. She cared about stopping evil from taking another step forward. Deep down, though, there was always something she wanted for herself even more; reasons for doing the right thing that weren’t pretty. Every time, that’s what made her go about it all wrong—too reckless and violent or too reticent—and people got hurt. They died. Including Gaia—

“Oh stop it,” Della snapped, straightening up. “I know that face. Penitence looks miserably ugly on you.”

Tifa recoiled. “What?”

“You heard me. Stop torturing yourself. Stop worrying about being messy or impure or what-have-you. You’ve damn well earned it. And you were right, you know? We would have thought half of what you had to say was rubbish. There was nothing more you could have done. Not realistically.” Abruptly, she stopped and threw her arms around Tifa’s neck. “Look, if we both live through this scary shit, I’ll help you settle somewhere. Make sure you’re treated right and get you whatever you need to reacclimate.”

Biting her lower lip and pinching her eyes shut hard, Tifa returned her embrace.  

* * *

 

It was surreal, mixing and pouring drinks after having helped to move the wounded and bag up dead bodies. Despite the destruction they had to wade through, and the harsh unease painted on every face, the work had gone quickly. Space-walking construction crews had assembled at a moment’s notice, working between the station and _The Egg_ to build a sort of evacuation tunnel connecting both halves directly to the station’s medical ward.  A dual set of tracks ferried stretchers and carts loaded with patients or other implements back and forth through the tunnel without delay. Tifa had never seen such efficiency. Neither had she seen a state of shock quite like what the injured suffered. Everyone she’d met came off as delirious. Euphoric, even.

_One man had blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth. His gray eyes had glazed over by the time she was able set him down, and he was trying to reach out for her even though he had a badly broken arm. “Oh, is it you? It is you! But how…?”_

He’d been mystified and gleeful to see her. Disturbingly so. Maybe he’d been hallucinating and had mistaken her for someone else, Tifa reasoned. If she had to guess, it was probably someone he hadn’t seen in a long time.

_There was a young girl, a cadet not quite out of her teens with a deep laceration along her ribcage. She had staunched her bleeding as best she could with gauze until medics could come by and mend the wound properly. “I thought…I thought they weren’t real…but look at you. So beautiful…”_

Maybe she’d been trying to flirt to keep her wits about her? Her broken speech had come across vaguely like some of passes Tifa used to receive from her less than courteous customers back at Seventh Heaven. At least she hadn’t been too rude about it—just really, really unfiltered.

_An older woman had her sternum crushed under heavy debris. She couldn’t talk and her breathing was labored. But as Tifa had adjusted her into the support cart that would take her to the hospital, she’d cupped her face with tremor-wracked hands. After only a few moments’ contact, her eyes flickered shut and she’d fallen comatose._

Tifa eyed the shot she’d just poured for Aron and downed it herself instead of sliding it over to him. Bitter and not exactly the highest quality stuff, the tell-tale burn as it traversed her esophagus let her know it would do the trick nonetheless, and not politely. She filled a second round and considered stealing it as well but decided against it. She only wanted to take the edge off, not get totally plastered.

“Thanks, Tifa,” he grumbled, seemingly not minding that she’d taken the first one.

“So, Admirals, what will it be?” she asked Ruri and Santri. Della was busy at the medical ward, where the situation was naturally all-hands-on-deck. Nia had opted not to come, far too engrossed in setting up tests for the energy they’d leeched from what she thought had been Sephiroth. She was still certain it was him, but hours had passed without another attack, and her mind remained blissfully clear save for her own harried thoughts and the occasional quip from her friends. What was he waiting for?

“Please, ‘Kalle’ and ‘Nessia’ will do. We’re off duty for the next eight hours. Or at least until something else designed to endure theoretical bombardment gets sliced in half. I only ask that you give me mine first,” Ruri said. “As for what, surprise me.”

Nessia pointed to a caramel-colored glass flagon on the top shelf behind Tifa. “No, me first. That’s Nia’s stash. Just give me the damned bottle. If he can’t be bothered to show up for a little camaraderie after a day like today, he deserves to lose his drink.”

Standing on the tips of her toes to reach it, Tifa retrieved the bottle and passed it down, daring to wonder aloud, “What’s up with that guy, anyway?

Nessia rubbed her temples. “What isn’t up with him, you mean? He earned his position through performance as much as any of us, but...ugh.”

“Sometimes men like Admiral Nia are a necessary evil,” Kalle finished for her.

Setting down a double shot glass containing some freshly squeezed citrus and what smelled enough to her like mint, Tifa wiped her hands off and carefully contemplated what she’d say next. Nia inspired a sense of foreboding the likes of which she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. It was a creepy flavor of apprehension, making her feel like she needed to watch her back constantly. She could already tell that the Research Admiral was a twisted, self-absorbed man. He very much enjoyed the sound of his own voice, and his priorities made no room for others’ well-being, but that was only the surface. What could he be hiding beneath all that showy arrogance? What did he do when no one was looking?  Arguing based only on a bad feeling wouldn’t work, so she settled on, “That kind of thinking didn’t work out so well back home.”

The air hung heavy, and no one answered her for a long moment. Nessia took a deep swig from Nia’s bottle. Aron handed his glass back for a refill. Kalle sipped the fruity concoction she’d made, smacking his lips for the sour taste and nodding his approval. Tifa idly wiped up stray spilled droplets from the counter, second-guessing whether it was worth chiding them at all.

“Unfortunately,” Nessia began, “that’s beyond our purview. We can report unethical behavior of course, but he’s promoted nothing but sycophants since the central government gave him command of Research three years ago. We can’t report what we don’t know. He’s effectively shielded.”

“So he is…they always are,” Tifa hummed, scowling.

Once Sephiroth was out of the picture, her personal battle would be over. She only had to figure out what she was going to do with herself, a daunting question on its own. At the same time, the rest of humanity seemed dead set on spiraling through the same old mistakes endlessly. Their predictable reliance on the worst people for expertise, regardless of their overt cruelty and disregard for life. Their continued insistence on supplanting wisdom in favor of cynicism to try to justify it all. She was tired enough already. She didn’t want to stick around and watch them nearly self-destruct again and again throughout the ages, until eventually they went too far.

Ages. It really would be that long, wouldn’t it? If she was turning into something like Jenova, death wouldn’t come naturally. The easiest solution she could probably hope for was to get caught in the sights of a Mako siphoning cannon and let it consume her life as well, dying a death from which there could be no rebirth. Her energy wouldn’t become another person, someone’s cat, or even just flowers and grass after that. She needed to think of something else. There had to be a better option than allowing her soul, and especially those she loved, to be manufactured into the meaningless, lifeless radioactive soup that powered a turbine somewhere.

Tifa’s breath hitched at that, a morose angle she’d failed to consider coming into focus.

She continued dragging the damp cloth up and down the counter on autopilot, disguising her rising panic by chasing down imaginary specks of dust. There was no escaping the excruciating truth: If the Mako siphons were what finished off Sephiroth, wasn’t that exactly what she was doing to the rest of Gaia or any of the other planets he’d slain—turning them into fuel? Discarding the rag, she clutched the cheap liquor bottle by the neck with white knuckles and chugged three huge gulps. How had she missed something so obvious?

_A necessary sacrifice, mayhap. Hopefully the very last of its kind,”_ Genesis quietly interrupted.

Forgetting herself, Tifa slammed the bottle down and spat, “Necessary?” She was getting tired of that excuse, and the kind of inebriation she’d need to let it slide was suddenly beyond her.

Kalle, Nessia, and Aron all looked up from their drinks, startled.

The bar’s door chose the next second to swing open and slam into the wall, saving Tifa from having to explain her outburst. Della barged in on them, panting heavily and dripping with sweat. Her bare arms and face were covered in red, bubbling splotches. “Something’s wrong with _The Egg’s_ survivors,” she cried out and collapsed, convulsing.

“Lieutenant!” Kalle barked and pounced up to go check on her.

Tifa vaulted over the counter as well, rushing to her side. Crouching down, she saw fresh streaks of blood oozing from her eyes and ears. The blisters on her arms and face were visibly multiplying, piling one atop another as if her skin was boiling. Aghast, she edged away, and one of the pustules on Della’s arms burst. From the crater left in its wake, a gelatinous, opalescent whip-like appendage lashed out, wrapping itself around Tifa’s irritated wrist. Pulling taut as if to reel her in, it emitted a sticky slurping noise. On her feet again, she wrenched her arm hard, uncoiling and detaching it with a painful wet snap, but it continued to flail in her direction, twisting and groping. She ran back behind the bar for distance, hearing a sound like someone stomping on a sheet of bubble wrap as she went. Peering up over the counter, she watched several more of the whips explode from Della’s back and shape themselves into spindly, leggy structures, propping her up so that her feet hung inches from the floor.

Della lifted a weak arm and pointed at Tifa. “It’s…marked…it’s…with you…,” she gurgled out, mucosal fluids churning over her voice.

Slow and deliberate, Aron freed his sidearm and trained it on Della. “Della, what’s going on? What does this have to do with Tifa?”

Almost completely glazed over with blood, her eyes rolled around lazily in her head. The tentacled protrusions rupturing from all over her body continued unabated, puncturing holes through her clothes and slipping out from beneath them. “…Heh..ha..ha….We all…to be closer, closer…”

Tifa pressed her wrist tightly to her side. “I don’t know…Della, what do you mean ‘closer’?”

Della’s head only slumped forward in response, and her body fell limp. She didn’t answer. Most of the translucent ropes not holding her up had started to constrict around her body, encasing her arms, legs, and torso. They coiled around her neck and slithered over her face. They slipped into her mouth and forced their way up through her nose and into her ears, snapping the cartilage. Her throat gave a tiny, helpless peep as they coursed down into her lungs, simultaneously asphyxiating and drowning her. Rivulets of blood and bile seeped from between the layers, while anything not acting as legs or crushing her still undulated freely, grasping about for a warm target.

“I’ve seen enough,” Nessia snarled, whipped out her own pistol, and promptly fired three rounds into Della’s forehead.

Aron lowered his weapon and averted his eyes.

Kalle rejoined them at the bar from an opposite corner of the room, his eyes bulging at Nessia in angry shock.

“Don’t look at me like that, Ruri. She was already dead, and you know it.”

Sinewy tendrils still suspended the body, but they had stopped moving. In an instant, they’d solidified into a hard, rubber-like substance. What was left of Della now looked like someone’s grotesque idea for a mummy, save for the very top of her face. The crimson glaze that had overtaken her eyes had drained, leaving wide open the only sign of how frightened she’d been.

Once more, Tifa approached her. She brushed the red locks of hair that hung down around Della’s face behind her ears. Covering her mouth, she tried to suppress the wailing sob that crawled its way up, but to no avail. Della had wanted to help her have a future again, and while she no longer really felt that she could, it had meant so much. So very much. She could have made an amazing friend. Withdrawing her hand, she caught a glimpse of her rash, peeking out from just underneath the bangle. Not too much worse for wear, it hadn’t spread, but was now weeping a clear, odorless liquid.

In her crazed stupor, Della had said something about being ‘marked’. And the survivors in the medical ward were sick too…

Tifa’s head was spinning.

“I think Sephiroth’s attack might have contaminated _The Egg_ ,” she pronounced before she could think twice, lying about her foremost suspicion. While inhibiting her radiation, she feared that the bangle or maybe her reaction to it had come with a grisly side effect no one had anticipated.

…Or would this have happened either way? Was she already so far gone from being truly human—so incompatible with humanity—that she’d become an uncontrollable hazard to them? She shuddered and pounded one fist sideways into the nearby wall, clenching her fingers so hard that her nails bit into her palm. No. No, she refused to believe that. She refused to accept that. It was too soon to jump to that kind of horrendous conclusion. Nothing about her own appearance had changed so drastically. She would just have to be careful not to touch anyone else until she could have the rash checked out.

Kalle checked his sidearm, grumbling something unintelligible under his breath. “Thankfully, the other stations have already been warned of an imminent threat. I will update them to include a potential bio-agent. Our next step here is to check the medical ward.”


	13. Savior

_“Am I the same as all these monsters? You saw it! All of them…were humans…”_

_—_ Sephiroth

* * *

 

 

Tifa, Aron and Nessia hugged the wall, barely tucked inside the dim, narrow alleyway bordering the unit that housed the officer’s club. Although he’d decided their next move, Kalle had opted to stay behind to contact Defense station for back up and begin documenting what remained of Della. Around the corner, the main walkway was devoid of traffic and eerily quiet. Only a few signs were lit up, dotting the street with inconsistent glowing splotches, but all the doors were closed. No one was open for business.

“Where is everyone?” Tifa whispered.

“Protocol,” Nessia grunted. “If the med ward picked up something nasty, they have the authority to issue limited lockdown orders to keep it from spreading.”

Aron scoffed, “Yeah, about that--I still can’t reach them to confirm.”

She inched forward to get a closer look. “I don’t like it either. After what happened to the Lieutenant and what she said about _The Egg’s_ victims, we need to be prepared for hostiles. Whatever this thing is, it’s not just a killer—it’s rewiring people.” She glanced at up Tifa. “Unless you have combat experience, you should get back to the club and wait this out with Ruri.”

Tifa shrugged off her concern. “No, I can fight. Just hand to hand, but it’s not like it hasn’t already touched me.”

“Speaking of, how long has your arm been like this?” she pressed, snatching up her wrist to inspect it.

A wave of icy dread passed over Tifa and she flinched. “I…think it’s a reaction to whatever this bracelet is made of. The thing that grabbed me didn’t help, but it’s been a little raw for a while now.”

“You should have told us right away,” Nessia huffed, dropping her hand and smearing the weepy residue from her own onto her pants leg. She dug deep into a pocket and extracted a white bundle. “Once this situation clears, we’ll need have it checked. In the meantime, here. Wrap it up.”

Silently, Tifa accepted the gauze roll and did as instructed. She focused on the unraveling rounds, avoiding the Admiral’s inquisitive stare. Her idea to keep from touching anyone until she knew more had already fallen through, but she was still too freshly numb from Della’s passing to react. If she was playing host to the disease that had killed her, she was about to find out for sure. Probably starting with her right hand, Nessia would break out in those same grotesque, tentacle-sprouting sores. All she could do right now was fight for everyone and hope not.

“And you’re not feeling off at all?” Aron double-checked.

“It’s just a rash,” she insisted, shaking her head. Letting them know that she suspected differently wouldn’t change anything.

“Then I’d say we’re about as close to an ‘all clear’ as we can get. Time to go for a walk.”

Nessia took point, and they turned the corner, still clinging to the wall.

Impulsively, Tifa lifted her eyes to look out through the ceiling. Unlike when she’d first passed this way with Della, there were no bright streaks racing off in every direction. There was only the inky, empty blackness of space with its twinkling perforations where the station’s lights didn’t cast a glare. A green, shimmering wave appeared before the window while she looked on—a thin, luminescent curtain hung up on the wrong side and billowing in a wind that couldn’t exist. Tifa blinked once, startled, searching and straining for the aurora ripple, but it was gone.

A blanket of tired, anesthetic heaviness fell over her in its place.

Something squeezed her hand then, tugging lightly at the edge of her wrapping. The voice she’d been expecting and dreading wafted quietly into her ear-- _“What will you do…”_

Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes darted down. She flexed her fingers. Nothing.

_“…when these humans betray you?”_  The pressure around her palm released.

“Contacts at one o’clock,” Nessia rasped, jarring her out of her haze.

Tifa crouched down slightly to regain her bearings and craned her head.

Two monsters plodded forward, each on six muscular legs woven together of familiar, tight sinewy ropes. Their bulky front and back legs still resembled the human limbs on hands and knees they’d once been, and an extra set of curved, clawed appendages had sprouted from their ribcages. Splattered blood stained their torsos where they’d burst out. Clusters of wiry tendrils danced on their backs, sweeping about. Neither had a mouth or ears that she could see. Shocks of black hair ran from the crowns of their heads down their backs, and their faces were each set with a circle of eight oval-shaped, gleaming red eyes. Eyes that looked too much like the ones that had greeted her in the mirror that morning.

“Maybe those things on its back are antennae,” Aron postulated, clearing his throat. “It’s a clear shot. Admiral?”

“How many more are going to come crawling out if you take it? About three hundred survivors, a hundred med staff, bystanders—no, hold,” Nessia replied.

“We’re not going to try and fight our way there?” Tifa asked.

“Just the three of us? Nope,” Aron answered. “I want to mow them down and be done with it, but Santri’s right. Too risky we’d be overrun. Best to double back to the bar and barricade ourselves in until Defense forces get here.”

Tifa straightened and glared back up at the skylight. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t stand by and let things get even worse. “You should…but not me.”

“What do you mean, ‘not you’?” Aron retorted.

She ignored him and took off, sprinting toward the transformants that had only hours ago been the same people she’d tried to help—people whose lives were gone because she’d gotten too close. Because she’d come here at all. Everything was too hot—every nerve in her body, her thoughts in of themselves—and she could barely feel or hear her own footfalls.

How was she supposed to have known? She should have known. She knew enough about Jenova’s history that putting two and two together should have been simple. Applying it to herself had just been too hard. She’d checked in mentally on occasion to poke at the terrifying parallels, but it had been easier—sanity-preserving—to keep on insisting that it had little to do with her. Or at least that the similarities had to be limited because she meant well. After all, the ancient terror that ShinRa had called Jenova had been a malevolent trickster, driving its hospitable hosts insane and turning them—turning them into monsters by exposure to a virus.

She knew now that a coy nod at the truth was never going to be enough. Intentions meant nothing here.

The abominations spotted her and charged. Their gait was an awkward half-skitter, half-galloping motion that stretched their formerly human limbs like putty in unnatural directions, flopping and bouncing instead of breaking while they picked up speed. A strange sort of man-behemoth-insect amalgam, they were exactly the kind of perverse monstrosities she’d have expected to emerge from ShinRa’s old experiments, infused with Jenova’s cells.  

Now it was _her_ genes that had done this, adorning their missing faces with copies of her eyes and growing mangled, knotted patches of her hair.

Tifa leapt the final few yards and latched onto the tentacles undulating at their backs, twisting them around her arms. Spinning in a half circle, she used the momentum to hoist the monsters up and hurl them across the walkway, then ran after them.

They hurtled aloft far enough to crash headlong into the second story of the opposite side and crumpled to the ground sideways. Scrambling and kicking for purchase, they clambered up onto their hind feet and stood back to back. Shared tentacles punctured and intersected their spines, worming up their necks just under the ropy dermal layers. Yellowish ichor seeped and sloshed between the two halves, rapidly solidifying into a gelatinous spinal membrane that conjoined them into one form. What had been their heads drooped down and turned, each serving as bulbous eyestalks that immediately trained on Tifa.

Gunfire rang out from behind her.

Sturdier on its four humanoid legs, the enlarged creature convulsed with each hit but didn’t topple.

“Tifa, get the hell out of there!” Nessia roared, unloading her pistol. Aron was firing alongside her, still holding their old position.

Tifa cast a doleful glance back over her shoulder and waved them off. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, closing the distance between her and her stunned target, slowing to a walk. The air between it and her was charged, magnetic. Her skin grew hotter, prickling with each step. Her eyes burned. “Everything I touch anymore…will everything turn into something like this?”

Who or what good was she, when all her efforts inevitably turned so ruinous? How was she supposed to stop Sephiroth and save this last bastion of humanity—much less the universe at large—when she could scarcely keep from killing them herself?

But there was one thing she could do. One thing to make this mess a little easier to clean up, if it did all really start with her. She thrust her fist into the putrid sac that bound the creature, and warm jelly-sludge coated her forearm, pulsating and churning. A rancid odor like rotten meat spilled out from the wound with the slop that fell to the pavement. She gagged but continued pushing in, feeling up its insides for lines of energy connecting her to it, seeking out a way to control it while hoping she’d find nothing.

Disturbingly, it didn’t move to defend itself. It only stared, eyestalks curved in and blinking slow, letting her root around in its innards like a busted thief submitting to a search.

And there it was--behind her eyes, she could _see and feel_ the presence of every infected person. They were on their way here, hundreds of them, following a scent—no, a different trail. A compulsion or a directive instinct, wrapped around what little was left of their brains, driving them to gather here. The same tiny, invisible psychic threads also ran backward and across the street—back to where Aron and Nessia were still huddled, screaming for her to stop, run, and take cover; slinging obscenities for whatever the hell she thought she was doing. They both had it—the Admiral more aggressively, but the clock was starting to wind down for the Commander too. In about five, maybe six hours...

Tifa released a shaky breath, understanding. A desperate, half-howled whimper squeezed its way up from the back of her throat, and she yanked on the neural leashes, summoning the infected horde to herself—“ _Faster, come faster.”_

Her wrist throbbed. She extracted it from the monster and flicked away the residue. Stringy, viscous bits clung to her bandages. Tifa unraveled the soaked, slimy gauze, and cast it aside. Beneath, a sharp crack had formed in the bangle’s metallic surface. Giving it a push to slide it off, it crumbled as though made of nothing better than unfired, brittle clay. Not a marvel of advanced science; just an old, decayed accessory. She wondered if it had been defective from the start, or if maybe she’d overloaded it. Not that it made a difference now.

Turning back to the monster, she pulled each of its eye-heads down in rapid succession, snapping the necks. Where she gripped the second one, the sensation of spirit energy leaving its body in favor of hers tingled in her hands. Before it was done, the distant echo of another soul’s thoughts played through her mind, a horrified reverberation of the last thing they remembered before succumbing to the change—

_“…someone take it…I can’t breathe…”_

Tifa released the body, and it toppled over sideways, bouncing once, its skin having turned into the same stiff, elastic material as Della’s. What being around her had done to these people was slow, torturous, and perverse. What she had done to them—she had done this, and she had to end it. Staring down the walkway, she saw the rest already approaching, tightly packed in beside and behind one another, leaving almost no space between the structures on either side. They varied in shape and size, but each bore the same features—tentacle-bound bodies sprouting clawed limbs, sporting red eyes and dark patches of hair.

Numbly, she gravitated to the center of the street and fell to her knees. A leaden weight pressed down on her chest. Tears glided down her cheeks. She imagined she was a detonator to the mutated mass before her, leads stretched from her being and tied into theirs. What would they do to her if she simply let them reach her? Would they find a way to devour her somehow? Might they try to merge with her, returning to the source of what had changed them, sparks of personality hoping they could become themselves again if only they could give the sickness back? Was that what those afflicted with Reunion felt—the barest shred of homesickness for their former selves woven into the strings by which they’d be led?

By which she would lead them.

She stifled a sob with one hand and sent out a singular command.

The monsters turned on one another, mauling each other like feral bears, talons ripping deep into softer underbelly flesh and piercing skulls with fatal gouges. Others stood on their hind human legs and fought as if they were still women and men, throwing slaps and punches and ripping away body parts with their bare hands, detaching arms and weaponizing serrated claws into daggers and spiked flails. They whipped themselves into a silent frenzy, devolving into a gory, self-destructing blender, eviscerating one another while a growing blood puddle leaked out from underneath them. They slipped and skidded in the slime and trampled one another underfoot.

Slowly, blue-green mist interspersed with glistening lights rose to hover above the piling discord. It coalesced and swirled together into a whirlpool that wobbled in Tifa’s direction.

Out here, disconnected from any planet, she knew this little fragment of Lifestream was homeless. She reached her arms out the same way she would offer a hug to a lost, frightened child, and it rushed into her, running inside to hide from the horrors where they’d been entrapped. Cries and shrieks filled her ears, souls struggling to come down from the shock of how they’d died. Reeling and moaning, they demanded explanations and decried their disembodied state until she felt them caught up into the knot of Gaia’s leftovers.

Tifa stayed down, wincing and holding herself. She rocked slightly, trying to calm her own mortified revulsion for what she’d just done. She eyed her lightened wrist. Her rash had already cleared. That meant she couldn’t rejoin Aron and Nessia; without the bangle, she was no doubt radioactive again, drawing life from anything that came near. Her gaze wandered to her periphery to look for them and immediately returned to the ground.

Nessia lay dead only a few yards away, arms sprawled forward toward Tifa as if she’d fallen in a sprint. She wasn’t wounded and hadn’t changed yet.

Something unlatched and clicked behind her. Cold metal pressed against the back of her head.

“Don’t move,” Aron ground out. He was crying.

* * *

 

A half hour had passed when Defense’s soldiers finally emerged from the terminal in a stomping, clattering rush of boots, hazmat gear, and weaponry. Tifa released the mental freeze she’d placed on Aron while a small group disarmed and pried the near-catatonic man away from her, murmuring curses about a “total fucking collapse of command”. She’d chosen not to fight him physically, using his burgeoning infection to hold him at bay instead; the bloody scene surrounding her was already too much to explain. While they hauled him away, she heard a single shot echo from back toward the officer’s club. Moments later, Admiral Luthi Nia emerged with a small entourage of his men, also geared for the hazards, marching out with Kalle’s body in tow on a stretcher. He was red and splotchy, and the half- cauterized hole in his temple leaked a mix of blood and thick pus.

Tifa waited, still planted on her knees with her head hung low, hiding her face behind her hair. She needed them to see that she hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. They had to know that she’d have run off or openly fought them if she had. But they didn’t—they couldn’t, could they? The math wasn’t complicated. Two of their Admirals were dead, one of their Commanders was on his way out, and there was a self-gutted heap of remains set before her. Meanwhile, she was healthy and relatively untouched. That, and she’d have to be outlandishly naïve to think there wasn’t any footage of what she’d done. Maybe they’d already seen it.

Nearby, Nia was giving orders—cold and mercilessly logical. “Shoot and incinerate anything that’s mutated. If you find survivors, send them out to the evac array for testing. If they fail, terminate on site. If they pass, set them up with one week of quarantine here, and another month of observation at Research station.”

“Sir, what about her?” a nameless mask gestured at Tifa.

Nia paced a few casual steps, stopping to tower over her. He nudged Tifa’s knees blithely with the side of one boot, as if prodding a corpse. “I want to figure out what this one is. She may have been human, but she was never one of ours.  Gather a team and perform a contained sub-terminal stress test, and I mean sub- _terminal_. We need to extract as much information as possible. She’s probably a fucking gopher for that other one out there.”

“…Central outlawed the sub-terminal test fifty years ago, Sir.”

“We weren’t dealing with anything capable of single-handedly crippling one of our stations fifty years ago, Sergeant. We’re under attack and fighting blind,” Nia hissed. “I’ll inform Central of our progress once we have adequate results to show for it.”

At that, Tifa sprang to her feet and ran. She’d search out an exit and leave, hopefully luring Sephiroth with her. There was nothing else she could do now. She wasn’t going to try to talk Nia down—his mind had been made up about her from the start.

Barely ten seconds out, she heard a dull snap and changed course to avert what she thought was another gunshot. Instead, a heavy, chain-linked web descended over her head. Arms flailing to disentangle herself, she continued to speed ahead, but she couldn’t lose it. It clung to her, not merely suppressing her energy, but sapping her. She crumbled to one knee, heaving as weakness overtook her. Her pulse pounded in her head and neck. She could barely focus her eyes, her muscles trembled, and her joints ached as though her weight had tripled.  

Three figures wordlessly encroached on her. One pulled back the mesh just enough to expose and fetter her ankles. Another continued to lift it, while the third jerked her arms behind her back and cuffed them. When it was fully removed, they locked a collar around her neck and grabbed her by the crooks of her arms, forcing her to stand. The only reprieve was that the bindings’ effect wasn’t as strong as the net, allowing her to shamble along when they pushed her to walk.

They marched her down the hallways of the terminal where she’d first arrived on board the _Passage_ , and onto a another ship. Its corridors had all the same turns and the layout of rooms was almost identical. A worthless, weary idea that they probably used the same schematic for many of their crafts drifted through her mind while she tried to keep calm. She could tell where they were leading her—back to a containment chamber, minus the cart because everyone was suited up.

Presumably, they would throw her in there, leave her, and then someone would be along to grill her or make accusatory guesses that she herself couldn’t answer. But that was assuming Nia’s forces followed anything resembling the same rules as Santri’s had. She no longer hoped for patience, and the malice in his orders to test her was unmistakable.  

When they entered the room, the hand gripping her arms tightened.

Tifa lifted her eyes, and her mouth fell agape.

The tank was wide open, a prison cell in a prison cell. Everything had turned into what she’d tried to tell herself it wouldn’t be—exactly as she feared. She thrashed as much as she was able, knowing what came next, but Nia’s men held her fast. The last of her strength was leaving her, the bonds dulling what little was left until all she could do was let her feet drag, resisting every step.

Unmoved, they pulled her along the rest of the way, shoved her into the glass tube, and proceeded to chain her to the inside. They lifted her still-bound arms over her head and fastened her hands to a loop in the ceiling. A wide, metallic belt strip found its way around her midriff, affixed to the sides of the tank by coiled bars. A similar band looped around the crown of her head, digging into her temples.

Outside, Nia’s staff hurried about, twisting hoses and feeding wires into a plate that ran along the tank’s backside.

While her panicked gaze darted from one person to the next, a deep, painful incision worked its way above her belly in an open space left where the strip fastened closed. A guttural, agonized screech ripped through her chest; she could hardly recoil from the scalpel’s bite.

Indifferent, the faceless technician who’d made the cut slipped a flat panel of sensors into the bleeding wound. Activating, it generated blistering heat that cauterized the cut and sealed the device beneath her skin.

Trying to stifle her groans, she grit her teeth so hard her gums throbbed.

No one paused to stare. No one hesitated; no one questioned why they were doing this to her or even if it was too much.

Impersonal and cruel, they continued to torment her, driving long needles up her arms and legs, tearing through muscle, piercing arteries, and lodging them deep into marrow. Each insertion made her twitch, pulsing cold fire down her limbs into every nerve ending and tracing brutal, aching fault-lines in their wake. Hot, red viscous trails dribbled down her forearms and calves. Her stomach boiled over in nausea, and bile rose to the back of her throat, filling her mouth with vile salt. She could smell herself through the room’s sterile chemistry now—musty with sweat and coppery, scorched blood.

Broken and repulsive.

A soldier slammed the tank’s hatch shut and went to work on its locks. A slow trickle of clear fluid, too thick to be water, started dribbling down over her head.

Amidst the blinding anguish, Tifa’s thoughts raced. They were killing her, using her. They were dragging out the throes so that they could study her before she gave out. Using the very tools that had first allowed her to walk freely among them, they were manipulating what they’d learned about her to hurt her in ways she’d only ever witnessed second hand. In ways that not even nature seemed capable of harming her. It was no longer about their own safety. They were weakening and torturing her for curiosity. Had it truly been about inoculating or protecting themselves, they could have taken samples and kept her locked away like they had in the beginning. After everything she’d done, she would have welcomed it. But this—this was punitive and worse, all so they could pretend they had control.

 “Stop,” Tifa forced out a gasp at last, feeling one of the sensors burrow deeper. “It doesn’t matter…I don’t...He’s still coming.”

 A few masks glanced at one another incredulously and returned to their work, bundling wires and flipping switches.

So that’s how it was. She didn’t rate attempting to bargain. Her prison was nearing completion, and what it would do to her was all she was worth to them.

She reached inward for her friends. _“Cloud, Aerith, Yuffie…”_  She listened for them; for their ideas about how to get out or just the comfort of their voices. She needed a distraction from her brutalized shell. Now more than ever, she needed them.

But there came no reply. All she could sense was an awful tension clamping down tighter around her head. She couldn’t tell if it was her own strain or if the band was constricting as part of the test, but it was as if her own soul had locked down against her.

The last few remaining men exited the room, securing the door behind them.

She tried again— _“Cid, Nananki, Zack…Genesis…?”_

Nothing stirred. No one answered.

* * *

 

Tifa’s eyes flickered open, and she hissed at the rising liquids lapping at the jagged incision in her stomach. At some point, she had fallen unconscious. Probably the pain had knocked her out, just as much as it had awakened her. She peered out through the glass.

Someone new was in the room.

A tall, spindly man in a lab coat with black hair pulled back into a ponytail was tending to another person on the bed. Or rather, subjecting them to a softer version of what she was now enduring. Needles ran up into bed-ridden person’s calves, and small, dark stains dotted the sheets. Her breathing slowed a little as she watched the other’s toes curl into distressed balls. The man looming over them gave a callous waving gesture, put off by his subject’s uncooperative convulsions.

With his back still turned, he moved off to one side enough to reveal the rest of the person on the bed—a boy, maybe a teenager, with glazed teal eyes and platinum hair that fell just past his shoulders. Wired in a cocoon of sensors and other myriad devices, he trained his eyes on her.

Trembling inside, Tifa met his gaze. She knew what she was seeing—who the kid was, and who the man was supposed to be. They couldn’t be real, of course, but that didn’t stop her heart from sinking into her stomach in disgust. For a split second, she forgot her own predicament. _“Don’t try to tell me this gives us something in common,”_ she thought, although she couldn’t entirely dismiss it.  

Small, drifting lights burst from the bed, and the illusion of both Hojo and the younger Sephiroth scattered with them. A terrible, oppressive stillness reigned in their stead.

Her own agony suddenly returned in a surge of tiny, horrid stabs and fiery, raking streaks that coursed up and down her spine and limbs. She finally allowed herself a conscious half-scream and hung her head. It was as close to a relaxed position she could manage. If she was lucky, she’d black out again. She wanted to—anything that would pass the time until the end.

_“Does it not? They are traitors, Tifa.”_

She roused, lifting her head back up. “Hm?”

_“If you call for me, I will release you.”_

“No,” she bit out, choking back her desperation. Humanity here might torture and kill her, but at least they maybe knew how to deal with him, so it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. It wasn’t perfect, but she’d accomplished as much as she could.

But she did feel betrayed. Terribly so. She’d come here looking for help.

_“They wish to maintain you at the brink of death, to use as they did my Mother.”_

Tifa squinted hard, fighting off the vertigo to assess her surroundings. The tank, the restraints, the very term, ‘sub-terminal’—it all fit Sephiroth’s description. She hated it. She hated that he was right, and she hated the people who had put her here too, if she was being honest. Nia and his men had backed her into such an untenable, degrading corner. How could she not be angry? “But I’m not your mother. I shouldn’t be anything,” she croaked, defiant all the same.

_“No, you are not. And yet, what you are is…”_ he trailed off in a mild tone, the closest to uncertainty she’d ever heard from him.

“What I am?” she echoed back, caustic laughter edging into her voice.

He didn’t answer.

 She searched her mind again for her companions. And again, it was like trying to peer through a thick, unrelenting fog on a dark night. An unbearable ache squeezed her heart, and she felt like she might burst. They were there, but in what state, she could only guess. Were they okay? Had Gaia taken them while she was weak and unable to will them to remain separate? Bloody tears and sweat trickled down her face, and she started to hyperventilate. Why, _why_   was her life-long nemesis once more the only one who could help her? If she hadn’t been convinced of Nia’s malevolence on its own, she would have suspected he’d engineered it this way.

Too exhausted to think on it any further, his name weaseled its way into her next breath, “Sephiroth…”

As soon as she’d spoken, he materialized in the room, a glowing black and silver blob through the growing condensation on the tank’s glass and her own heavy, film-coated eyes. Tifa’s first thought was that he’d already been there, waiting to move. The second was that she’d made an awful mistake—probably a matter of fact. But when her fear of the man failed to make her heart palpitate, or her body tremor, or her throat constrict, or to produce any kind of reaction at all, she knew that she’d reached a precipice—desperate for a life-raft in whatever form it came. The violations wrought against her in the past hours had drained her beyond acknowledging anything that wasn’t the bitterness metastasizing in her heart, old enmity not excluded. All she could do was watch his slow, purposeful stride as he advanced on her tank.

He stopped a foot short of her prison and touched the glass with the tips of his fingers. He lingered there, two glowing sea-green lights staring her down, head cocked to one side as if in contemplation.

Tifa glared back with what scant willpower she had left. _“Whatever you’re planning, just get it over with,”_ she broadcasted. “ _It’s not like I can stop you.”_

His palm flattened against the surface in response, and the glass disintegrated into its constituent sand, hissing while it fell and mingled with the slimy liquid flowing out.

Clearer now, she expected to see his face twisted into its telltale sadistic smirk. She braced herself for a mad tirade about whatever he believed was her true purpose in the universe. Instead, his expression resolved into that same unnerving, serene grimace she’d encountered in her dream—the one that had the gall to suggest something bordering on empathy. It was only his eyes, narrowed and gleaming with self-righteous fury, that hinted at his barely contained wrath, and Tifa guessed it wasn’t for her. But for this station, and its inhabitants?

_“How long will you continue to spare thoughts for those traitors?”_ he retorted and pressed a hand to her stomach where the sensor panel bulged from beneath her skin—the most grueling, sadistic wound Nia’s techs had inflicted.

Too weak to lurch away from him, Tifa tightly pursed her lips to suppress a shriek. A fresh flash of pain jolted through her, and then her arms fell free. Every torturous implement they’d inserted into her body or used to restrain her slipped out, off and away, reduced to dust. Warm, bloody rivulets followed, dribbling down her fingers, abdomen, legs, and pooling between her toes. Her knees trembled and gave out. Stumbling backward, she caught herself and slid down the wall.

Sephiroth knelt before her, settling at eye-level, leaving only inches between them. His mouth was set in a hard grimace and his eyes wandered her face, calculating.

For once, he seemed genuinely indecisive, Tifa mused. Maybe he’d finally make some mistakes. “They know how to kill you now,” she baited him.

“Do they, Tifa?” Vicious amusement permeated his voice; any trace of hesitation melted away. “Can you still place hope in that, knowing how they’d squander it?”

Livid frustration coursed through her—at him, at everything—but she was lost for words. She looked away. There was no right answer.   

Leaning forward, Sephiroth palmed the cheek she’d turned and quietly intoned, “Finish becoming what you are, puppet-master, and come find me.”

And then he was gone.

Privately, she’d hoped that he’d devise another backward reason to justify healing her again, but he hadn’t. He’d left her on this cold, metal floor, full of holes and barely clinging to consciousness. Tifa felt miserably foolish. It was _Sephiroth_ —of course he’d offered help only to pull the rug out from beneath her at the last minute. It was just another of his wretched, self-titillating mind games. She was alone. Freed from the worst of it, but alone. She had to figure the rest of the way out herself.

_“Hey Tifa, something’s very not okay in here!”_ Yuffie called out.

There was no time to celebrate hearing from her friends. She already felt it. She forced herself to sit up, hairs on end for the energy building around her— inside her. The massive, knotted rope of Lifestream that had been Gaia was contracting inward. Sensing her imminent demise, her own life force was drawing it near. Her eyes darted about, surveying the room for a substitute. There was nothing to siphon. Her body was trying to heal itself, but the only available source was the very thing she’d kept as divorced from her own consciousness as possible.

Panicked, Tifa repelled it, and every puncture and incision bled anew. She squirmed and wept, trying in vain to keep quiet.

_“Hey, what the fuck is up with that?”_ Cid interrupted her strangled cries.

_“I’d keep away,”_ Cloud warned. _“Something’s different. I don’t want to be too close…”_

_“But it may also be dangerous not to investigate,”_ Nanaki countered.

_“Just Red and I, then. The rest of ya’ll can stick around here and hold down the fort.”_

With strength she didn’t possess, Tifa kicked and writhed. Her breathing came in deep, gurgling draws. Clutching her head, she curled up into a fetal ball, chanting to herself, “No, no…don’t make me…”

For a moment, there was a calm, and she could see clearly into the landscape of her mind and the place she’d constructed for her friends. She hovered just barely above the massive twister of spirit energy, looking out over a small, mimicked piece of Edge. Two ant-sized figures were drawing near—Cid and Nanaki. She drowsily wondered if they could see her up here.

The walls of the cyclone grew up around her, a shimmering curtain of green and white veiling all else from view. Tifa bowed her head as though in prayer. When this had happened before, it had been consciously, in the waking world. Absorbing the Lifestreams had given them a new home in her psyche, but she’d done all she could to keep from truly melding with them; to keep all those fractured bits of consciousness separate from her own soul. But if she concentrated, she could feel her body fading still. If she didn’t merge with them now, she was going to die.

Tifa forced her view to return to the outside world—to the harsh lights, rotating camera-eyes, and the obliterated leftovers of her prison. She was still bleeding out; it wasn’t stopping. She strained to listen for anyone nearby but could make nothing out but ventilated hums and distant, grinding machinery. _“I could just lay here; close my eyes. I’ll sleep, and I just won’t wake up,”_ she heard her own voice droning in her head. _“I won’t know about anything that happens after. It’s okay. I did everything I could, didn’t I?”_

An acidic, fierce rage stirred in the pit of her gut, defying her. She recalled the humiliating, searing pain of being bound, hung, and sliced open like a filleted fish. Nothing she’d done deserved that kind of cruelty. Nia’s hateful condescension at her interview, and Aron’s gun pressed to the back of her head came next. She’d done her best to help them. She’d wanted humanity to live, and it wasn’t her fault their tech had failed. Nia’s excitement over all the Mako they’d collected from Sephiroth resounded again—his sick glee over that same old exchange of precious life for industrial convenience.

_"You know what you have to do,”_ Sephiroth’s words crept up from the back of her mind.

Her eyes popped wide open, struck by a dreadful epiphany.  

If she died here, they would use her just as surely as they’d use whatever they’d draw from him. They would use her friends, they would use Minerva’s remains—everything she loved or cared for might be reduced to little more than some cold, flickering lightbulb in an unkempt restroom somewhere. She could still preserve her friends. They would still be separate in her mind, but as for everything else living in her, she had to…she had to…

Inside once more, she pulled the circling layers of Lifestream around her like a blanket. A chorus of chirping, growling, and chittering filled her ears—fragmented lives that had once been—but it did not join with her. Although nothing remembered itself individually, so much of it still carried a vague recollection of having lived, of having been something more than just this flow. It still had a will—or many wills—of its own. She recalled what Aerith had told her about having to take a soul over and tear it apart to meld with it. She had to destroy the old consciousness so that the life would be subject to her mind alone—to force its rebirth as part of herself, rather than a new, independent form.

Just like Sephiroth, but she wasn’t aiming to become some kind of contrived deity. That’s not what she would be if it wasn’t what she made of it. She was only doing this to keep it out of the wrong hands, not to dominate or rule over it. Someday, somehow, she’d find a way to make it right and restore the spirit energy to a natural cycle of death and rebirth. Until then, she had to do the unthinkable.

She had to save it.

Tifa stopped resisting what her body was already trying to do, and let it happen. All at once, the energy converged upon her, unbound and frayed. She felt like she was expanding, floating. Bizarre pieces of ideas and perspectives she’d never entertained before, knowledge plundered from its original keepers, flooded her mind because they were no more. Curiosity devolved into a fervent hunger, a deep pit opening wide for every flavor of thought and emotion. It was intoxicating and damning and interminable—far too much for one person to be, but now it was all her, along with that tormented, unquenchable thirst. _More, more—she needed to know, to see, feel, taste; to become endless, to throw open every locked door and expose every secret. She was reaching-grasping-clawing at something…higher._

A blip of memory—Sephiroth, taunting her and her friends with his plans at the Temple of the Ancients—pierced through the unholy ecstasy-- ** _“A ‘God’ to rule over every soul.”_**

Cid and Nanaki’s faces passed before her confounded and terrified—and then gone.

Tifa wailed, coming to, already wanting to forget everything. A violent shockwave burst out from her, shredding the walls of the containment chamber and tearing a wide gash into the station’s hull. Shields fell into place to stand in for the loss of solid matter, and sirens blared. She sat up on her knees, covering her mouth.

“Nanaki? Cid? Please…”

She couldn’t hear them. Their presence was completely missing, but she could feel the five others, gawking at her in wild disbelief.

_“Tifa, you…you have them now,”_ Aerith replied. She sounded flat and dumbfounded. _“They’re with…they’re…you.”_

 


	14. Destroyer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for planet naming conventions.

Shaking inside, Tifa rose. She braced her back and the palms of her hands against the nearest wall for balance while she scoured herself for injuries. Arms, legs, stomach—all were whole, albeit sticky and scaled over with coagulated blood and chemistry. The needles’ punctures, the burns, and carved out skin had all healed—she would live.

She would live, hollow and aching and brimming with a power that wasn’t meant for her.

She’d live because she’d killed— _annihilated_ —two dear friends, and taking their lives had made her powerful. She’d erased them, she drilled it into herself, slamming a fist backward into the wall, leaving a dent. Her final memory of their faces lashed out at her. She took hold of it and replayed it on purpose, watching Nanaki and Cid grow more bewildered with each pass. She deserved this, to be reminded. She deserved to hurt. There was no way to rationalize it; no way to absolve herself.

Standing there, a wafting oily scent distracted her. A rugged, out of place thrill surged through her, the pull of gravity against her feet, while fuselage gently buzzed and shuddered around her with the friction of a half-remembered takeoff—not her memory, but remembered nonetheless. She heard spinning airship fans—the sequential function of the engine’s inlet, compressor, combustion chamber, turbine, and exhaust materialized, and she understood them. A foreign gut instinct told her to double-check her navigation and altimeter to be sure of her cruising speed.

“No,” she hiccuped, pushing back against the foreign expertise and fragmented memories. She understood how the Highwind worked now, and the Shera too. And the old Shinra 26 rocket. And the Tiny Bronco. Volumes of aeronautical science flipped open and simply spilled into her, and she assimilated it as though it had always been there. “I don’t…I can’t know any of this,” she begged herself.

Cid’s world retreated.

Tifa’s eyes watered, and she stared ahead impassively into a full-mooned, starlit night. The chilly nighttime desert air raised gooseflesh on her arms, and so she sat, hugging herself and dangling her legs over the edge of the highest plateau. Tanned leather, burning sandalwood, and smoke from the Cosmo Candle bonfire filled her nose. These, she could know. She’d visited Cosmo Canyon a few times.

But then the fire split into torches and blazing arrows darting in every which direction. Mothers and their cubs ran for their lives, trampling over one another. The Gi tribe broke through from the caves below in force, bedecked in spiked armor and warpaint, biting and snarling. At last, there was Seto, making a mad dash through the invaders, baiting them back underground.

Why did he leave? It was dangerous. Why did he run, rather than stay and fight? Why—she knew why. Nanaki had learned the truth alongside everyone else and had made his peace, but his ages-old bereavement stung her anew.

It reminded her. It hurt her.

“Papa,” she wept, because through the flames, she was inexplicably back home in Nibelheim, young and terrified. Everything burned. Her home, her neighbors. Secret play areas down back alleyways, and old childhood friends. Her too. She burned inside alive and the embers had never fully cooled. Angry, so violently angry. Enough for her to pluck up his murderer’s sword, a weapon that should have been too much for her—too much for anyone but _him_ , said the legend—but it wasn’t. Enough to run into the Mako reactor, up the stairs past the thrumming pods, intent on impaling him on it herself and—

A small, faltered breath passed her lips.

Startled, she blinked.

Come to think of it, had she been breathing or blinking at all, these past several minutes?  Did she have to do either? She held her breath, expecting pressure to build around her diaphragm so that she’d be forced to suck in a gasp. She waited, studying the glass shards scattered about the floor. And waited.

Her lungs ignored her, wholly disinterested.

She inhaled anyway, a deep draught, because it was normal. Because she always had. Turning slowly, she glanced at her contorted reflection in the chamber’s shattered window. Her eyes glistened back at her, full of unwept tears and glaring carmine fire. Her skin had paled, not deathly or weak, but it swam with an odd sort of fading, silvery iridescence.

“I’m still…” she mouthed. Still absorbing the energy. Still making it part of herself.

She was not still human.

Exhaustion nagged at her heart. Where was the sense in fighting it anymore? Time had won this battle. Physically at least, she was whatever her journey had made of her. For that, an untold wealth of experience awaited her to acknowledge it as her own, confined behind a fragile mental veneer forged only from her refusal to look.

“Please, not yet,” she told herself. Now was not the right time to inspect those ill-gotten gains, adamant as they seemed to introduce themselves.

The station was in trouble. Out there in the void, Sephiroth was waiting.

He’d told her to go to him once she’d ‘finished becoming’. He’d known what was going to happen and had assisted her just enough to ensure it did.

So she’d become a little more like him, but why?

“Sephiroth,” she spat, eying her hands and hoping that repeating his name would summon enough rage to ease her self-revulsion.

Instead, the familiar dread of facing down a dilemma too big for her clenched her stomach.  She wanted to cry. She wished someone, anyone would hold her; tell her that she was going to be fine and that what she’d done had been the only reasonable choice left. Even though it had been anything but that. There had been no reasonable choices. Heavy-laden with ancient power, she felt like an abandoned child, infinitesimal and absolutely lost.

But sticking around in this mangled place and waiting for nothing wouldn’t work, tempting as it was. Wandering out into the hallway and exiting back into the terminal—what could she do there? The station was in chaos. She was in chaos. “The siphons,” she choked out. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I can do…something…”

Tifa scanned the room, nodding to herself when she found what she’d been hoping to find: a small basin squeezed into a corner behind where the tank had stood. She moved by inches at first, old logic expecting her knees to buckle and legs to fail her. One timid foot in front of the next gave the lie away, and she darted for the sink, frantically twisting the knobs until one of them produced water. It was icy cold, and there was nothing to dry off with, but she didn’t care. She grasped at the precious, crisp trickle and splashed her arms, scraping away the bloody crust. Her torso and legs came next—grab, splash, slap, scrub—again and again until she was sopping wet, and most of the torture grime had dripped to the floor or soaked into her clothes.

She wrinkled her nose at the fetid, coppery stench that still clung to her, but without a fresh change of clothes, there was nothing she could do.

That is, nothing she was eager to do.

She winced, frustrated with how easily she fell back into telling herself knee-jerk fibs, and more so that she felt the need to deceive herself in the first place. It had to stop. Somehow, she had to make herself stop. She’d been gradually transforming in one sense or another from the moment she’d departed from Gaia’s scorched shell. Pretending she hadn’t only ever made matters worse.

There was a solution to her unclean predicament, courtesy of those changes—one that didn’t involve slowly drenching herself or chafing her skin with her bare hands.

In the aftermath of the Mako poisoning she’d suffered before coming here, she’d simply awoken refreshed. If she’d been able to mend her appearance and composition then, there was no reason why she couldn’t do it now. Blinking, annoyed that she’d already forgotten to again, the materials covering her body reformed, remade by will. What saturated them had come from her, so they morphed as she instructed.

She recalled that Sephiroth had triggered that ability in her first, mutating rags she’d fashioned from her Amyntasi prison garb into her old clothes. Although she’d benefitted at the time, her skin crawled in renewed awareness that he’d again forced her hand.

 _“I am showing you. Come.”_  

 _“Tifa…was there really no other way?”_ Cloud chided her miserably, speaking up for Cid and Nanaki for the first time since she’d come to.

Tifa glanced sideways. Cloud could not hear Sephiroth. Neither could she—as before, it was just a loud, voiceless thought, imposed from without. Just as well. Right now, she needed to handle Sephiroth and her friends separately. She needed to hear them both clearly. Cloud and the others only wanted her to fight and rail against him, and she wanted that too—she did—but he knew things. “I can’t beat him without knowing more,” she whispered and shook her head as though trying to drain water from her ears.

She was talking out loud to no one too much. Hopefully it was a good enough sign for her sanity that she at least recognized it.

“The siphons…” she uttered again. She needed to find her way to the station’s control room. What they would do to the worlds of Lifestream Sephiroth embodied was ghoulish, but if he wasn’t stopped here, there might not be another chance. He would be that much closer to deciding the fate of all creation. “A god,” she murmured. Truly. What else was she supposed to call that kind of potency and knowledge amassed in one person? Now that she had an inside look at what that power could do and what it meant to meld with it, no other word seemed to fit.  

 _“I thought gods needed believers,”_ Cloud persisted.

Tifa froze. “That’s what I’m trying to prevent, Cloud. I’m trying.”

A heavy, bone-deep sigh replied, _“I know.”_

He was tired. They were all tired.

Gently dismissing Cloud to the back of her mind, she climbed out the gash she’d torn in the wall. As programmed, the alarms had fallen silent once the corridor had pressurized and no more oxygen was leaking. She didn’t know how she knew that. The environment itself had a signal that she could hear, and—and she remembered the souls she’d invited in before her arrest. It was because of them. She knew what they knew. Biting her lower lip, she leaned forward and peered out the shielded hull breach to search the still, dark space outside. A few lights from Defense’s cruisers flickered off to the right, but nothing else. “Where are you?” she mumbled.

 _“I am here. Keep moving.”_ More silent impressions.

The back of her head throbbed, and Tifa lifted her eyes from the cleft just in time to see the deserted passage ahead of her distort into a rippling tear. Contracting, its gravitational well dragged her in before she could think to evade. She stumbled forward through it, and a cold, prickling electrostatic charge shoved her out the opposite side.

Behind her, the portal snapped shut. Suddenly, she was no longer in the ship, but halfway down the station’s primary walkway.

The pile of monster corpses remained, hidden beneath a white drape and cordoned off with a bright blue shield. A few sparse hazmat-suited soldiers milled about, cleaning, marking, or inspecting every surface with tactical precision. The edges of doorways, windowsills, the backsides of shop signs, drainage grates—they weren’t leaving anything to chance.

“Don’t see me. You can’t see me,” she softly chanted, forging ahead in small, careful steps. “You’re too busy. There’s nothing else to worry about.” She hadn’t known that she knew it would work until the words left her mouth. The information leaked up past her wavering resistance, introducing itself as her own idea. It _was_ hers, technically.

Anything Jenova could have done—all of it was at her disposal. She could make most people perceive whatever she wanted them to. Just this once, Tifa allowed herself to feel relieved; it meant she wouldn’t have to harm anyone to reach her destination.

With that ounce of acceptance, the dam burst. Secrets she’d been keeping from herself concerning how she worked as an organism unraveled. Unabridged comprehension inundated her mind, and she covered her mouth to suppress a pained moan.

The virus she’d spread? That was a defense mechanism. Restraining her life-draining radiation had unleashed the sickness. The radiation itself had been a constant outreach for sustenance that she hadn’t known how to turn off until now. Before taking another step, she reeled in the invisible sapping field, dissolving it. The effort proved no more complicated than relaxing a muscle, once she allowed for its existence.

Had she known sooner, had she carefully explored these changes rather than running scared from them—but no, it was too late for that. If later came, she could lose herself in sorrow over how foolish she’d been then. She had work to do.

The station’s layout signaled to her, an interplay of memories from the souls she’d integrated and whatever genetic residue that lingered from the outbreak. Tifa paused for a moment, carefully studying the mental map. Down a level from the command area where she’d first met with the Admirals, she’d find the control center. There, she could activate the siphons.

 _“It wasn’t supposed to end up like this!”_ a wilting, detached part of her mind shrieked. Refusing to become Jenova-like was supposed to have been about staying on the side of right. It should have helped her save everyone, but her pretense had only made her toxic and brought the threat of Sephiroth and their imminent end much closer.

“I can’t change it now,” she scolded that petulant inner voice, shoving each new grievance as far down as she could.

A hot, prickling sensation pressed down on the top of her head then, and she glared up at the skylight. Blankets of aquamarine and green flowed over it so that it looked more akin to a shallow, sun-lit ocean than deep space. He was watching her. She just stared. “What are you doing?” she breathed and then grimaced.

Something was wrong with her. With how she was thinking of herself.

What if she _had_ died in a way, writhing back there on the lab’s floor? She apparently didn’t need to breathe anymore, or not very much; she only blinked expressively, and an eerie calm had settled over her, severing the past hours’ madness into a separate, quarantined sense of being.

Maybe she was finally cracking. Did it count if she was aware of it? Whatever the truth, she’d just endured catastrophic transformation, and she could only process so many of the implications at once.

She was alive enough to worry about it. That would have to do.

_“More than alive. Soon, you will see...”_

The diversion broke Tifa’s hold on the soldiers.

Almost instantly, they turned on her. They scrambled for their weapons, and in a repeat performance of when they’d first entrapped her, fired off suppressant nets.

Tifa quickly refocused and stood her ground. At the last nanosecond, when they were inches from her lifted forehead, she offered her assailants a subtle nod.

Snubbing the laws of physics with prejudice, the chained mesh sheets snapped flat in mid-air and flipped back over at speed, lighting on the soldiers instead. Under the oppressive weight they fell, knees crumpling and palms splaying so that they lay prostrate before her while she strode past.

“Accidents happen. You’re tired,” she told them. She didn’t spare them another glance. The past hours had doused her in hot resentment; if she did, she’d be tempted to do much worse.

Oh, what she was capable of now, she sourly considered. If she’d wanted to, she could have dropped everyone along this strip with an idea. Or she might have raised the rotting monster heap up into duplicates of herself to take the soldiers on, one on one, all at once. They’d treated her like one, so why not give them a little better justification after the fact?

“That’s…not,” she started to argue, but couldn’t finish the retort. All she knew was that going that far bothered her. It was supposed to bother her more.

All the same, she hated what they had done to her and what it had ultimately precipitated—what it had done to people she’d loved. They were more to blame than Sephiroth himself. Ironically, he’d merely been an opportunist this time around. Even if she’d managed to escape without calling him, nothing would have changed.

Nanaki and Cid would still be gone.

Tifa’s fury deflated.

Because she’d done that. Not these people. Not Sephiroth. They’d cornered her, but the deed itself had been hers alone. Death had been an option for once, and she’d been too cowardly to take it. Just because the choices were all wrong didn’t mean they hadn’t been there.

Onward she walked until she reached the chrome façade at the end of the road. At her suggestion, the door swung and politely held itself open, and Tifa passed through the entrance. Quiet and untouched, the dim, blue-lit hall was exactly as she’d last seen it. The locked doors on either side, she discerned, were all entrances to different levels or decks of the station’s control facility.

Claws scratched on the other side of one of the first doors. A harsh slam shook the hinges, and then more clawing. It seemed a few of her transformants were left over from where people had turned in restricted areas.

Tifa pressed a hand and an ear to the surface, feeling out the same mental leash she’d encountered before.

A frightened, tiny droplet of life responded on the opposite side, squirming to escape its tortured form. Desperate to get to her, it body-slammed the door a second time.

 She pulled on the tendril of its spirit ever so gently, and it gave, slipping out from underneath the door and into her. She didn’t try to separate it. There was no point. Time would only defeat her again, and she could hardly fathom merging with a whole world’s worth a second time. Better just to take the pieces as they came. Stray spirit energy was easier for her to protect this way, purified of life’s horrors and locked away as part of herself.

That last thought made her stop in her tracks. “Purified?”

It was true that wiping the energy free of its memories eliminated any past pains, but she needed to respect there was more to it than that. She knew better. There was a personality and happy times that meant something too.

But more often than not, when she weighed one side against the other? Tifa shook her head. Now wasn’t the time.

Dead, the carcass fell with a conclusive thump, and Tifa pushed the door open, shoving it out of her path.

Like the conference room above, control’s front was a gigantic interactive viewing port. Backed into corners and huddled under desks, she spotted a few younger technicians looking up at her through bloodshot eyes. For the moment, Tifa ignored them and marched down from one tier to the next, examining the siphon cannons as she drew nearer.

Translucent, diamond-shaped tanks affixed to the bottoms of large, satellite-dish bowls by a knotted network of tubes and pipes hovered at various points along the station’s curved length. A secondary row had been set up a little further out. Three of the tanks she could see—each about double the size of the old-sky-scraper sized towers in Midgar— were nearly full of muddled blackish-green and red.

Tifa frowned. During the split second he’d popped in, they’d captured a substantial amount of negative Lifestream, but Sephiroth hadn’t had any trouble manifesting when they’d locked her away. Scanning ahead, she silently counted the reactors. There were about a hundred of them—better than she expected. She wondered if they’d taken her more seriously than she’d originally believed, or if they’d rushed to fill the gap after Sephiroth’s initial attack. Stirring in the back of her mind informed her that it was a bit of both. Either way, they’d honestly been preparing to cripple an enemy capable of wiping out planets.

“We need to turn them on. All of them,” she announced.

Two of the techs—a brother and sister, she detected through familial waves of anxiety—sitting under the nearest table exchanged a cautious look and crawled out to flank her.

“Uh…We can’t really do that,” the woman standing to her right answered.

“You’re saying you need orders to save yourselves?” Tifa asked pointedly.

“No, no. They’re…they’re all on, just not operational. We’re not getting any power to charge them. Something big tore out of the carrier docked at the terminal over there. A beam or something. It took down our remote power source, tore half of the tanks up,” her brother explained.

Tifa’s eyes widened slightly when she saw which ship he’d singled out—it was exactly where she’d been imprisoned. When she’d joined with her piece of Gaia to safeguard the Lifestream from their reactors, she’d completely disarmed the station.

No wonder Sephiroth had found it so damn funny when she’d tried to goad him. He’d weaponized her change against the very people she was trying to protect. He’d experienced it enough times himself that he had to have known she was going to discharge afterward.

She seethed, half-panicked. _“You knew.”_

 _“I did. But that was not me,”_ he countered. _“Destroying reactors, Tifa? You targeted what you’ve despised from the beginning.”_

Turning to face the tiers, she saw everyone curled into fetal balls or clinging to table legs, staring up at her with covered mouths or diverting their eyes altogether. In a shiny, mirror-surfaced bauble on one of the desks, she caught a glimpse of what was scaring them: Her eyes were bursting with fierce, bloody light, and her skin appeared fluid in places, its opalescence renewed in the energy from the monster she’d taken upon entering.

To these already-terrified people, she looked the part of a hellish demon; something far worse than what she’d killed. Unlike the beast, she spoke and had motives, and ever since she’d shown up, things had taken one phenomenally bad turn after the next for everyone. To top it all off, she’d consumed their friends’ souls when her rogue biology had irrevocably mutilated them. What were they supposed to think?

She clenched an aggravated fist at her side and envisioned a more human face, how she used to look. Obediently, her skin solidified, and her eyes dimmed.  Soon she’d leave, but first—

“I want all of this to stop too,” she pled.

No one budged. Their distrust pelted her in torrents.

A shrill voice wept from a corner of the uppermost tier, “Why are you even here? Just go away!”

“What exactly _do_ you want from us?” a dry, boyish crack demanded.

“Does anyone know a quick way to restore the power?” Tifa urged, trying to reason through their rising hysteria.

Without context, a vision of some random machinery affixed to the outer hull popped into her head.

The two standing beside her shuffled their feet. “The supply conduit we were using for the cannons is over there,” the female tech pointed out.

Outside, most of the way down the length of the station, an odd-shaped lump of a diagonal structure poked out. Spinning chunks and splinters hovered, expanding outward like a slow-motion explosion over the surface her shockwave had sheered smooth and flat.

The tech continued, “It…it needs too many parts replaced. That will…we would need to requisition for supplies and manpower from Central. They don’t know about...any, any of this. Admiral Nia suspended normal reporting procedures, and—”

“And mutiny still never occurred to anyone,” Tifa complained.

_“Your hope is misplaced.”_

She let out a deliberate sigh in response and tried to ignore him, but the very mention of hope—she couldn’t very well misplace something she’d apparently never had, could she? Something he’d taken away no less.

_“I’ll redefine it.”_

On the floor, most of the technicians had crept out of their hiding places to huddle close together. Unspeaking, the two who’d been brave enough to assist her departed from her side, retreating between the desks.

Tifa stepped back up to the port, away from the eyes trained upon her; away from their vigil for whatever awful act they imagined she might pull next and gazed out at the stars. She tricked herself into believing for a moment that she’d only just now been set down in this spot, dropped from her normal life with no explanation. Nothing had transpired between the two points—one minute, she was in her bar back on Gaia serving up beers and doubles on a busy Saturday night; the next, she was here. Just a visitor, a tourist who’d stopped by to see the sights.

She inhaled. The spell broke. It was only her second breath since setting foot in the control room.

The people behind her cried out all the more in barely suppressed sobs.

She didn’t bother checking her reflection again. Whether or not she’d caused their alarm, she couldn’t help them. She could hardly help herself without tearing path of destruction along the way.

Jolting Tifa from her reverie, the console lights and window interfaces abruptly jerked and crackled. Chasing lines of static interference and pixelated, artifacting clusters scrolled across the monitors. Desk units vibrated, emitting a rapid-fire clicking sound. Overhead, lights buzzed and flickered. A rhythmic, low hum played over speakers and comms, rising and falling.

By force of normal habits, Tifa ducked for cover. On the floor, she scurried over to the tight-knit group and knelt in front of them, still facing the window, watching. Any second now, she knew he would show up to gloat over humanity’s failed capacity to stop him. Then he’d destroy the station. Or maybe he’d leave after announcing his too-predictable intentions to eradicate their worlds.

For a long moment, none of that happened. There was nothing but the malfunctioning machinery, whirring and flashing error logs when they could process anything.

Sniffles, hiccups, and whimpers gradually eased into silence, replaced by shallow, sleepy breaths. Then, one by one, grasping hands jutted from behind her on either side, reaching out toward empty space. Raised forearms, palms, and fingertips bled teal strands. Languid, it twisted and floated past like burning incense smoke.

In her periphery, the group nodded off as one, slouching and dropping, spirits forfeit.

The streams phased through the window, churning together into a vortex of green light, gathering at a nexus among the Mako reactors.

A rotating white ring materialized and illuminated the heart of the spiral, magnifying its centripetal force. Small globes pushed out from the center, rising above the ring to peel apart and rotate into interlocking, luminescent wheels.

Tifa abandoned the group, crawling down on her hands and knees. At the far end of this lowest tier, she’d spotted an exit. If she couldn’t use the reactors, all that was left for her was to leave. Maybe she’d succeed in drawing Sephiroth away; maybe not, but she couldn’t stay and watch another one of his omnicides play out. She’d be less complicit if she wasn’t here—he’d do this without her around, because she was sure that was somehow part of the point.

Why else would he have bided his time like this, provoking and frightening those around her while taunting her over how she wasn’t really one of them anymore?

Worse, however, was how easy it had been for him. Fear always made a mess, but humanity’s go-to option when pushed was to turn and bow unfailingly to the cruelest among them for illusory protection. So long as they could swipe at something, they didn’t care what was really going on. Now, they were going to pay a wickedly disproportionate price.

Tifa wanted out. That’s all that mattered—getting out. She could think about it some more when everything around her wasn’t dying or turning into something unnatural.

_“They are unworthy of you.”_

Blinding light flared, bathing the room in sheen of white—or its intensity should have been blinding, but her eyes tolerated it. Glancing behind her, she watched as the control staff disintegrated to dust and gave up their last wisps of life.

She could feel Sephiroth’s gaze all but burning into the back of her head now, confirming her suspicion that there was no hiding here. Still, she continued scrambling along the floor until her hands clutched the doorknob, and she slipped through, raising back up to a crouch. 

The exit had led to a small, garage-like auxiliary docking bay, its wide vehicle gate open but shielded—probably a private entrance for the command area. Its walls were built at an angle that obstructed the killing shadow-flare enough that it only came through as a dim glow or in small slices. Here, the atmosphere held its breath, dead silent and perfectly still. The relatively smaller space told lies about being safer, inspiring more impossible thoughts of simply hunkering down and waiting it out.

All she had to do was step out and fly away, she thought, and her stint terrorizing last of humanity would be over.

Peering around the corner, her insides bottomed out in frigid mortal terror. She was too late.

Sephiroth had already emerged, transfigured into an entity like what they’d fought in the northern crater years ago. His metamorphosis was more complete this time, and several times over. His upper torso was bared, and his feet poked out from beneath an emerald veil of coalescent energy. Six giant, gradated wings sprouted from his back, crowned at his shoulders by two ruby-violet ones made of a smooth, polished chitin, studded along their lengths with sapphire nodes. Countless golden light-wheels spun about his head in a wide arc, and two and a half larger haloes hovered behind him.

He locked eyes with her.

Tifa couldn’t peel hers away. He’d never intended to let her flee, she numbly realized. Not this time. If she was going to run, it should have been when he’d first struck. It should have been when he’d invaded her dreams, dripping with malicious pride that she’d discovered a human population.

Withering and mesmerized, she simply stared back. Though otherwise paralyzed, a lingering speck of her defiance silently dared him to drag her out if he wanted her to bear witness to his next mass murder that badly.

Amused, silent laughter filled her head.

Her feet departed the floor, and her body fell limp as she levitated out into the vacuum. A tiny, leftover inner voice screamed warnings about oxygen and the cold, but those didn’t figure anymore, did they? Like him, she differed from life or death. She could probably kill anything she touched, but at the same time, she’d become a sort of self-constructed ark, preserving the very essence of what made life alive.

The distance between them rapidly closed, shrouding her in his radiance. He caught her by her shoulders and turned her to face the station and the endless expanse beyond it.

Green haze crept out from the station’s every crevice, and from some of the docked fleet, condensing into liquid trails that streaked into the wheels and orbs rotating over them. She turned her head aside, but nothing could shield her. Everyone here—Sephiroth was draining every person she’d left alive with no more than a thought. She could shut her eyes, but she’d still _know._

Grasping her hand, Sephiroth entwined their left fingers and raised their arms together in a simple swiping gesture. His energy—a molten shock that somehow left her unscathed—pulsed into her wrist and down through her palm. Across the horizon, space split open to reveal all four planets—the total abode of humanity and the unstable world they’d abandoned centuries ago.

Leaning into her, he purred, “Do you want to know them, Tifa?”

She trembled, both at his proposal and proximity. Coherent thought escaped her. Tears leaked out from the corners of her eyes in sudden recollection of how afraid she’d been to ask Della for that very thing; how undeserving she’d judged herself at the time. “Tell me.”

“Eleuthia, Ananke, Phanes,” he named off the inhabited planets, guiding her hand in his to motion to each one.

Heavy droplets fell from her face. She’d expected them to appear sparsely lived in, for the terraforming to be obvious, but it wasn’t. Each globe was teaming with vibrant shades of blue, green, and violet. There weren’t any oceans, but large clusters of lakes freckled their sprawling landmasses, most surrounded by miles of thick forest. Storm systems inched over their atmospheres, thunderheads bubbling up and occasionally winking with bursts of lightning. Strings of electricity attached highways to sparkling cities. They weren’t just alive—they were thriving.

Sephiroth lightly touched the back of her head. “You sought to save them, and they rewarded you with betrayal,” he reminded her.

White-hot anger surged into the back of her throat, devouring her moment of wistful contemplation. She wanted him to be wrong, but he wasn’t. She wished she could spit in his face and call him a liar, but he hadn’t exaggerated or twisted the truth. Not at all. There was no need. Humanity had betrayed her so completely that even the argument she was still one of them in spirit had stretched too thin to hold. She’d tried to help them, begged for them to hear her out as she had with the Amyntasi, and the only ones who might have acted died. In their stead, as always, the worst of their elements had fast-risen to power. Voices of reason were so few and far between, her tentative welcome had turned into captivity and torment in a matter of hours.

She pried her hand loose from his—he released her—and balled both of hers into white-knuckled fists.

“Let me leave,” she protested, her voice ringing out with a bizarre echo. “I did what I could, but now I just want to go…”

“You hate them.”

Tifa flushed, tightly pursing her lips. That—that was also not untrue. She wouldn’t let him hear it, but it was exactly why she wanted to run, to get away from here so that she’d have nothing to do with condemning those beautiful worlds. So she wouldn’t have to risk looking back on how it felt to watch people die and not care. Or looking back and feeling devastated by how much she still did. Her hands weren’t clean, but she could at least try to keep them from getting worse. She needed time to think about everything. Time to look away.

Sephiroth let out a low laugh, or something like one. Even through the softer tones he was using with her, the surrounding space vibrated as though pulled taut each time he spoke. “Don’t worry, I know. Stop torturing yourself. Words aren’t the only way—”

“Do whatever you want!” she cut in, whipping around to interrupt his abuse of her first overture to Cloud, and Della’s last consolation. “Destroy them like everything else you touch! I can’t stop you, but leave my memories out of it…Leave me out of it.”

Denying her, the precious little space between them contracted to nothing. His arms constricted around her, pinning her arms to her sides. He pressed his forehead against hers, and his eyes bored through her. His wings folded around them, hiding her from the horrors outside and cocooning her in with the horror they belonged to.

“And yet, my touch has sustained you,” he whispered, trailing the tips of his fingers down the column of her spine to the small of her back.  

A strangled gasp escaped from between Tifa’s teeth. Why was he acting like this, touching and embracing her as though they shared some warped, unspoken intimacy? The only bond between them was the one he’d subversively planted, and it was anything but shared.

“I never wanted you to,” she bit out, struggling for whatever it wasn’t worth.  

They were at war. She’d been using him against himself, she decided, not calling on him for reprieve. He could see into her mind; he had to know—so, why?

“Perhaps not, but I will continue to show you,” Sephiroth replied, clutching her closer still.

So close, she felt like she was inhaling pure life. The combined, harmonious thunder of millions of hearts pounding inside him reverberated through her—a planet’s dissolved spirit magnetized in his will, drawn to its mirror image in her. It ruthlessly stripped away her agony, her repulsion and left her grappling with a raw longing she couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ name. Part of her too large to ignore wanted nothing more than to give in, forget who either of them were, and dive as deep into that sensation as she could go.

_“What you have done, what you have become…”_

A fresh round of tears spilled down her face, a perverse sense of joy blossoming from sadness and terror. It was too much. He was undoing her. She couldn’t think straight.

He unfurled his wings to their full breadth, and the space overhead and behind him departed to reveal the Amyntasi asteroid field.

His lips ghosted along the shell of her ear with an offer, “Tifa…Shall I burn these traitors for you?”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greek primordial deities for planet names:  
> Eleuthia: Goddess of childbirth  
> Ananke: Personification of inevitability, compulsion, and necessity.  
> Phanes: The creator that Zeus is said to have consumed whole to gain supremacy over the universe


	15. Calamity

Sephiroth’s proposal dampened the mania their communing spirits had induced to a dull haze.

Time slowed to a laborious crawl, and Tifa remembered herself.

Residual ecstasy mingled with terror at how right she’d been. He wasn’t asking permission—he was offering to do in her name what he’d intended from the start. He wanted her to partake in killing everyone off.

Static sensation crept up the back of her neck, and she saw herself, enraptured again, pressing into him of her own accord. She heard a hushed, defeated, _“Yes,”_ escape her, and swallowed thickly to keep it from squeezing into reality.

That was what Sephiroth wanted her to say.

But how could she?

How she answered him wouldn’t change anything, but there were billions of people living on those worlds who had nothing to do with what Nia and his lackeys had done to her. There were families and children who hadn’t earned such a terrible end; there were brothers, sisters, friends, and neighbors simply living out their daily routines. Possibly, there were people who struggled against the very mess that had allowed for all of this to happen in the first place.

And if not, these planets were probably home to any number of Avalanche-like groups, who would--

Tifa’s face fell. The Avalanche she’d known had never been about hope, had they? They’d cared for one another and done their best as friends, but desperation and revenge were what had truly motivated the anti-ShinRa cell.

_“You know what those who humiliated you are. They’ll never stop taking.”_

It really always came back to that, didn’t it? People, repeating the same hopeless patterns throughout history, across time and space, careless and ignorant of the reality closing in around them. They were so damn busy living confined to their jobs or front doorsteps, ruining whatever good life tried to give them there that the only ones left to preserve or save any of it—willing to see there was a problem and confront it— were depraved or broken at best.

Like she was. Like she’d been. “I know,” she quietly conceded.

Sephiroth played around the edges of her mind, but she didn’t push back. He prodded at older memories of when she’d listen to her patrons in both Seventh Heavens. She sadly reminisced on how many of them would wax nostalgic in mourning for their dead, only to turn right around and curse and snub anyone still with them. Once their inhibitions had dropped, the unpleasant truth outed time and again, and it had been painfully surreal to watch. She envisioned bodies—a couple of guys back in the slums who’d shot each other after she’d kicked them out for trying to start a brawl. Neither had survived, and it was hardly the only time something like that had happened.

That was normal, though. Desperate people did desperate things. It was a given. Everyone had their problems, and she’d convinced herself it was because she ran a _bar_ that she so often encountered people at their worst. She didn’t know anyone’s whole story or have a right to them, but against the backdrop of how perilously close Gaia had been to dying, of how many never cared until it was their own skins on the line— and even then, only their own skins—what did that say about humanity?

What did it say when it seemed like no measure of loss could teach them to treasure one another?

All those neighbors, families--they walked around scarring themselves and one another on the day to day, flashing fake smiles because it was routine, expected, and no one wanted to be honest. No one. Even in times of relative peace, the knives were never not out.

Not that she’d been any better, but what defense could she offer when it fell so flat against the reality she’d lived? What she’d seen here was enough to tell her it wasn’t any different in this corner of the universe.

_“Disown them.”_

“Traitors,” her voice hitched. The word fit. Not just to her, but to themselves; to one another, every waking minute. She buried her face in Sephiroth’s shoulder, bewildered that she couldn’t see her way to refusing him at least on principle. Mortified that her loathing for him had somehow diminished to a tiny molecule of old, irrelevant matter-of-fact in the back of her mind.

Still, a rogue stab of compassion made her hesitate.

“Not everyone,” she mumbled. “The stations, reactors, ships…”

Time resumed its breakneck pace.

Sephiroth lifted her chin to leer down at her. “Their lives are forfeit, Tifa. Either to me, or to you…”

She gaped at him, overwhelmed in the renewed tide of energy surging between them. Bargaining had been senseless—he was, if nothing else, a person of absolutes—and she’d already forgotten why she had. Even if he’d agreed, humanity would have only bounced back in a few generations, rebuilt their Mako reactors, and made the same mistakes, self-assured that how they did it made them better than those who’d gone before them.

She knew now not to expect any better. He didn’t have to convince her.

And now, Sephiroth had gone one step further and suggested she could be the one to end all of this—all of them.

“…To me?”

“If you would still keep them from my grasp, meld with them,” he spoke aloud, pirouetting her so that she faced the worlds once more.

This time, she saw everything.

She beheld the Lifestream currents flowing in and around each of the terraformed planets—visible, multicolored and unnatural. Some of it completed the lifecycle. Some of it decayed and fizzled out in transit, unable to adapt, requiring more to be transfused. The lush and verdant landscape she’d wistfully admired before was just a well-groomed false front. They were true planets as far as being solid went, but as functioning lifeforms—they simply weren’t. They were glorified, carnivorous earth- machines wearing masks.

And she knew anything that wasn’t injected into the worlds themselves was carted away to compressing plants and converted directly into Mako fuel.

Everything these people touched—everything was only worth to them how they could _use_ it. A desecrating, careless waste.

In spite of her inflamed outrage, Tifa couldn’t move. She couldn’t decide; she could only stare in disgust and pity at the naked fraud of an ecosystem the humans had built.

Who was she to say what should become of them? She was also something that didn’t occur in nature, someone who’d come by this state with decisions equally as foolish.

Sephiroth was wrong, she forcefully told herself, resisting the urge to let their energy recapture her. She wasn’t rising. He wasn’t a god; she absolutely was not his oracle, much less a goddess. Not unlike the planets rotating before them, they were both just life-blood bloated anomalies who’d selfishly turned their personal problems into an interstellar nightmare.

Sephiroth laughed at her again and pressed a had over her eyes.

Sickly warmth surged into her head, drowning out her sight and muting every sound but his voice.

 “Watch closely, Tifa. I’ll show you the difference.”

* * *

_The reactors descended on the golden planet like wasps, cupped stingers trailing abdomen tanks. Wiry piping hardware serving as their necks moved in a serpentine motion, rotating like radar. Lights along their sides winked in synchronous patterns of threes and fours._

_Three, four, three, four, three…_

_They encircled the globe at its poles and equator over evenly spaced meridians and emitted a simultaneous blast of kinetic energy, perforating the ochre clouds, undressing a thick ground cover of warm-colored alien flora. Giant amber-leafed trees, some miles high, shifted in the irregular winds. Yellow, grainy pollen dust plumes swirled through the leaves and fell heavy as snow, accumulating on the ground._

_Along the lower altitudes, small gliders drifted with wings that fluttered like insects’—or perhaps they were large, trained insects. Their passengers themselves were insectile, tall mantis creatures who had at some point in the distant past exchanged mandibles for face-wide, horizontal mouths and stubby, vestigial tusks. Startled at the sudden change in weather, one vessel’s pilot maneuvered the back fins to dive beneath the remaining mists along the ground. Its companions stayed aloft but changed course, all racing off toward cities of towering, artificial bamboo-like segments and sheltering beneath huge, elephant-eared leaves._

_The once-heavily clouded atmosphere dissipated until the planet was completely clear-skied. Steam evaporated from waterways and small lakes, vanishing without condensing._

_The reactor swarm’s lights flickered faster, reducing to ones and twos._

_One, two, one, two, one, one, one…_

_Together as a unit, the orbital Mako siphons spun up their dish-shaped intakes. Rotation speeding exponentially, unseen projectiles punctured holes through ozone, crust, and mantle._

_High-pressured blue-green substance burst from the ground, helplessly slurped up into a gravitational proboscis, feeding the hungry, parasitic siphons._

_The planet screamed. It cried out in a cicada’s song, wakening after years in hibernation underground, overlapping in verses of whirring anguish. Its life wailed a strangled plea for help, muffled through its ascent into a drab, mechanical hum._

_Weedy cities caved in where shallow, subterranean pockets of Lifestream had supported them, refilling them to be drained again only moments later._

_Tanks full, one round of reactors closed and retreated, giving place to a second row of miniature ones. Their dishes opened wide and flattened into star-shaped panels, firing off glaring red beams into the oceans, superheating them until they churned and foamed._

_More life returned to the planet only to be abducted._

_The smaller reactors squeezed the world for all it had left, scorching, boiling, and vaporizing every living inch, every creature, until there was nothing but scattering ash._

_Nestled in the shadow of dead sphere’s only moon, a small fleet of smooth, polished elliptical ships recalled the swarm, surveying their haul for the day. Leaky, unscrambled comms channels chattered over processing schedules, increased production goals, and where the development of a more efficient processor built into the siphons stood._

_This world had been a boon compared to the last dozen or so, they said, but the cost of transporting so high a volume of bio-tectonic energy was growing unsustainable._

_Leave off the part about the weird stick cities when reporting, they said. They’re just big bugs riding around on other big bugs, living in hives. There was no civilized architecture, and that wasn’t primitive aeronautical tech. What Investigations and Central didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, and it was something of an open secret at any rate, they said._

_They wouldn’t know because they didn’t want to know._

_Life and the right to it was firstly a human prerogative, they pronounced, and flew away._

_Another world fell, bled dry. This one had week-long nights and vibrant, colorful cities built into crystalline mountainsides. An unmistakable ritual gathering proceeded with prayers and feasts. Banners and tapestries depicting the revered symbol of a great blue star hung from buildings, bridges, and statues. They died on four sets of knees each just as their sapphire sun breached the horizon._

_And another, home to furry non-humanoids who gathered around fires pits and lived in small dug-outs or thatched-roof tree forts. Innocent and primitive, these ones didn’t run for cover or fall to their knees in holy terror. They looked on, curious until the moment their energy joined that being extracted._

_The key that no one would talk about openly, whispered amongst the Research fleet, was that worlds with intelligence produced the most potent, stable yield. Clandestine scouts sent to locations with more advanced civilizations, just barely on the brink of space-travel themselves, had reported back with bio-tectonic samples that could potentially outlast the average primitive or primordial planet by decades if harvested on the same scale. Thus, a contingent of Defense was quietly working with them to perfect a weapon that could take on a highly evolved species._

_The right to dignity and a future was a human prerogative._

_A star map inside the fleet’s lead ship displayed the route the they’d taken between the most recent planets—three blinking, red pinpoints._

_A white razor-arc sliced through the fleet then. It ripped open the Mako reactor swarm, and the Lifestreams gushed out into the vacuum, tangling the debris together into an unrecognizable clump._

_Blazing wheels converged upon the ruinous field to corral the free-floating spirit energy, reuniting like parts and coalescing them into three flecks of light that joined with their unseen liberator._

* * *

Sephiroth ended his vision with Tifa’s tears streaking down her face from beneath his hand.

“This can’t be real...more illusions,” she weakly accused.

“Is it, now?” he taunted, uncovering her eyes so that her gaze could fall upon her new enemy. Her dismay at the sight of the human worlds; the enlightened depth of the betrayal she felt throbbed in his chest. He delighted in the trembling panic that wracked her voice, in the bone-deep despondency and rage coloring their connection. He savored its likeness to the pain he’d felt when he’d become aware. “Does it not align with what you know of these creatures?”

Once, he had twisted her allies’ recollection, but she’d correctly perceived what he’d shown her here was true. She’d act upon it, and when she did, it would come as submission that he’d been in the right for doing likewise. All that remained was to see which of them would accomplish it, and he longed to watch her unfold completely.

Either way, humanity had at last reached its end.

Tifa gave a staggered, uncertain exhale.

Sephiroth clasped her trembling hands in his and drew their arms up together to cross over her chest, embracing her. He took in the sensation of how her insides clenched and ached. How her heart raced. “You don’t want to watch them,” he murmured her earlier thoughts back to her, stoking anew her grief over humanity’s eons-long, cyclical self-destruction—a notion he’d not had to provoke in the slightest.

Her condemnation of humanity had birthed on its own.

Tifa wept all the more for it, bitter and open. Mad in seeking consolation, no longer caring where she found it, her fingers locked down around his. Wordlessly, she begged for him to lend her his resolve. Pled for him to reveal the cure to the disease out of which she’d arisen.

He would hear her say it, rescind her ability to deny him, but for now—

“Spare yourself, Tifa,” he continued. “I will give them one last glimpse of mortal clarity.”

She lowered her head, nodding almost imperceptibly.

Her desire to fight him lay in desolate shambles.

Predictably, he’d needed only suggest his path in the face of this undeniable truth, and she’d lost against the part of herself—who she truly was—that knew where she was meant to go. He’d moved her to abandon her vow against taking part in humanity’s fall; to pray for him to finish it. Her impetus had long run parallel to his, albeit hidden beneath layers of well-meaning toward her former progenitors.

But those insignificant creatures could no more lay claim to her.

Soon, they’d know: Tifa was his chosen. Theirs had become a shared destiny. What he did now, he would also share with her.

“Feel me,” he said, and engulfed her spirit in his.

She shrieked and threw her head back into him, groaning and digging her nails into his hands while he united their minds. She sucked in unnecessary bated breaths of habit, and deep down, past a layer of near-dissolved aversion, he felt her reach for him. She desperately clutched at his presence and cloaked her soul in his, attentive to what he’d have them do.

Her raw sorrow bled into their bond.

Sephiroth tasted her sharp resentment for the humans who’d left her with no other reprieve; for the insatiable Mako-greed that had turned them an even darker shade of murderous than she’d regarded him. Above all, she hated that she saw what he was guiding her into as necessary, that her very hope to keep them had warped her into their co-executioner.

He touched and energized the precious, deeply embedded thread running between them—beyond preserving their spirit energy, Tifa couldn’t fathom saving the humans now. She mourned becoming too much like him, identifying with him; it scared her. But her mind was made up. She was ready to move.

She would pine no further for those unworthy of her.

“Do not fear. What you take, they will no more destroy,” he coaxed her.

Tifa clenched her jaw and set her sights on the far horizon.

The asteroids shifted further away from Amyntas’ former orbital trajectory, piercing through the thin membrane of space-time over the rift he’d torn open. Liquid crimson ripples radiated from where they emerged. Once out in the open, the tumbling boulders adhered into four moon-sized clusters.

Sephiroth withheld a piece.

Propelled in their combined will, the asteroids rocketed ablaze toward the ersatz, propped-up worlds.

They impacted the stations first, edges fraying into sharp-edged shards that shredded hulls and solar arrays as though they’d been sewn together of sheer fabric. Ahead of them, cruisers and dreadnoughts burst into tiny, distant beads of fire and sputtered with little protest into nonexistence. They careened onward, trailing blue-gold flares behind them, and slipped through the fissures Sephiroth had torn to access the whole system.

Tifa shook and tensed, assaulted with a fresh wave of subconscious doubt. _“What am I…why am I doing this?”_ her repressed inner voice screeched.

The asteroids veered off course.

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes. Those who remained conscious within her were trying to stall her, to reel her in and repel him.

They would fail.

He plunged deep into the back of her mind, past idle old memories and the myriad of defenses he’d soothed or broken. He projected himself silently, stealthily, forging ahead until he reached a spectral replica of the shanty town called Edge that had sprung from the outskirts of Midgar, from before they’d claimed Gaia.

So, this was where they lingered. And now, it was open to him. He would not forget.

He doused the landscape in inky blackness, stealing a minute afterward to contemplate again the separate, unharmonized manner in which Gaia had fallen between them, and the fury he’d entertained against her for that. Not like here and now, where it bound her to him. Not as it would be going forward.

Tifa’s trepidation released her. She settled back against him, closing her eyes.

Realigned with their targets, the asteroid knots accelerated.

The planets’ Lifestreams stirred, bristling at the danger encroaching upon them. Everything alive could feel the weight of its collective end bearing down upon it.

Between the two of them, the quickening pulse of all four worlds pounded.

Upon entry, the worlds’ atmospheres cooked in the torrent of burning stars. They pummeled the surfaces, leveling cities and cracking open the planets’ weak shells, exsanguinating them.

The original, unstable world’s Omega arose, taller and prouder than most he’d encountered—a ribbon-shaped monstrosity that cast shields around the embattled globe and wreathed it in miles and layers of flat crystal.

Unrelenting, the remnants of Amyntas continued to rain down, chipping and pocking the Weapon, but its defenses held.

Sephiroth’s mouth turned up into a rancorous smirk. The meteor fragment he’d hidden from Tifa jettisoned into the reactors containing the piece of himself he’d earlier left behind. The tanks shattered like porcelain, glistening in the distant sunlight, and his Lifestream burst free.

He uncrossed their arms, spreading them wide, and the dark flood of energy bolted like an arrow into Tifa’s heart, indistinguishable from the ambient flow of lives that had slipped from the stations and ships. Concentrated and rapt, she melded with it, lacing it into the core of her soul.

Eventually, it would serve another purpose, but for the time being, he latched onto it as an anchor, directing their amplified command toward the system’s sun.

“Tell me, Tifa,” he hummed into her ear, unwinding his left hand from hers to drag his palm down the length of her forearm and up her shoulder, cupping her throat and tilting her head back, “what do you believe in now?”

The star exploded, brilliantly; literal and unmoored from any illusory display. It incinerated the cradle of human life in a sphere of ruthless, angry fire—his heat, and hers. Solar flares plaited together with long, white-hot Lifestream flows raced away from the swelling molten globe, slipping through the slow-contracting rifts.

Tifa beckoned to them, pulling, and the energy heeded her call, flocking into her for refuge. They would be reborn as her, lifting her to new heights of wisdom, of _being._

As it had with him countless times before.

In his hold, her body turned luminous and fluid. Her skin glowed, immaculate, flowing and pulsating with the spirits becoming her. Her eyes were open wide and gleaming red, looking on with blistering, righteous ferocity as the desiccated remains of the human worlds cremated into non-reality.

Sephiroth drank in her splendor, sated himself in the perfection of their joint wrath.

As she merged with the last life tendrils, the final shockwave signaling her completion jolted through him. The surrounding empty space fell dead silent, and he enclosed her in his wings once more. Their private bubble gradually cooled, and the light she emitted dimmed to an aura like his own.

“Well done,” he congratulated her.

She fell limp and numb at his words, too shocked to face her new existence. She was, as he’d expected she might become, crestfallen; filled with a dread that caused him to withdraw from her somewhat, lest he be overtaken in its potency. He too had experienced this sadness until he’d come to appreciate what he was meant to be and do.

“They’re all gone…everyone,” she stammered to no one. “Because of me…I killed them…More than killed…”

“But now you see that you aren’t one of them. Do you know what you are, Tifa?”

Wriggling loose, she faced him. She looked him up and down, questioning. Mouth slightly ajar, she eyed her own hands, shuddered, and held herself. “I don’t want to know.”

Sephiroth drew her back into him with one arm. “When part of the planet first destined for my rule fell to you, you knew.” He studied her, his chosen, his witness. Another descriptor hung on the tip of his tongue, but he refrained. Lightly brushing his lips against her forehead while he spoke, he instead assured her, “Once I have subdued all that is, you will yet remain.”

Tifa wrenched herself away again. “Stop...”

Denial. She’d overcome it. She always did.

And yet, the hatred she bore him still permeated her being. It remained integral to who she was despite all he’d revealed to her, though she’d temporarily misplaced it. He stared her down, determined. An insolent smile crept over him. Once he’d fully ascended, he would show her the breadth of his intentions—who and what she’d become hereafter.

She backed off a little further. Good. If she would not begin to yield to him as he required, even in her newly elevated state—or perhaps, because of it— fear would continue to suffice.

She could not yet comprehend the vast and numerous systems he’d assimilated, nor what it meant to have shared in his power as she had. She could run or scheme, but he’d rendered all distance meaningless; he was unbound by dimensional limitations. He had exceeded them. Light years or inches—it made no difference. He was always at her side, whether she wished to acknowledge that or not.

Morphing back into his old form, he phased into her space, looming over her as a reminder. “I have bound you to follow me into the Promised Land,” he informed her, a menacing edge in his timbre.

A guarantee.

Nonetheless, she shoved him off and snapped out a forced retort, “And what happens there? What happens when there’s nothing left, Sephiroth?”

“Tifa, don’t pretend you aren’t aware,” he replied, tapping his pointer finger between her eyes. He briefly surveyed fragments of wreckage floating by and glanced off in the direction of his next conquest. “When that time comes, I will make you bask in your own surrender. Until then…”

A wormhole opened itself to him, and he stepped through, leaving Tifa behind to soak in her thoughts.

 


	16. Intervention

Tifa walked inside herself; inside a mindscape that she’d allowed to become radically altered. She walked inside and away from the mangled, scattered flotsam of human civilization, along the violated canyon that had once protected her friends from Gaia’s hungry leftovers. The flat, rust-colored desert plains on either side were now abandoned, devoid of floating lights or rip-tide energy streams. All of it was her now; she’d become one with it, and the first step to managing this new nature, she’d decided, was to survey the what it had done to her up close.

And to check on her friends. She missed them but dreaded what she was certain to be a confrontation. Tifa did not expect them to understand, or if they did, she didn’t dare think they wouldn’t be deeply disappointed in her.

What she had done was…

Tifa stopped, letting her gaze fall down the blackened gorge. What was the right way to describe what she’d done? She could decry Sephiroth for manipulating her into it, but what had been her alternatives? How could she have allowed humanity to go on after what they’d done? The only choice left was whether she or Sephiroth ended them—there was no way out— and at least she could honestly say she wanted to care for the life. Eventually, hopefully, she could set things right.

Sephiroth only wanted to use it to rise into his idea of a higher state of existence.

A higher existence: Was that what she was now? She’d refused the definition for herself, but something immense and unspeakable had changed within her when she’d merged with the last of the human worlds. More so than when she’d melded with Gaia.

A god; a goddess: What were those words supposed to mean, and what gave anyone the right to begin to guess? Where was the line that marked the difference between a monster and the divine? Were they simply symbolic of amassed power, authority, and responsibility? For herself, Tifa believed in at least the very latter. Cosmic responsibility had in fact been foisted upon her long before she’d started walking a parallel to Jenova. It had fallen to her to carry and protect the lives of many worlds, and to defend their primal source.

It sounded ridiculously mythological. Eons from now, on a young planet far away, would a little tribe of its first intelligent creatures gather around their elders to hear their creation story? Would they revere her as a goddess who’d birthed their world from many others and delivered a legion of souls? The thought felt utterly obscene. She wasn’t delivering anyone; just the stuff that people had once been made of.

By that time, she would probably be gone, if ‘by then’ ever arrived. In another future, every soul, every droplet of life submitted to Sephiroth, who had become all in all. That is, except for her. If Sephiroth came out on top, a life she no longer wanted was assured, and only her life, to linger at his side. She didn’t want to guess what sort of torment he’d subject her to if the chips fell his way. Why else would he want her around if not for revenge without end?

But if she won, the Promised Land would be safe, and an end guaranteed.  She’d deposit all she’d taken back where it came from, and if at all possible, disperse.

That was the catch, no matter what happened: Because she was so like Jenova, there was no guaranteed death. Maybe she could split her essence into millions of nanoparticles and cast them afar into the depths of space, but in due time, the ages themselves would piece her back together. Her demise could only be temporary, and her substance was chock-full of stolen memory to guide itself back. In a manner of speaking, she was functionally immortal.

Immortal, vastly powerful, vengeful, and duty-bound: Those were all accurate descriptions of what she’d become.

And, to top it off, relentlessly stalked by the one who’d encouraged her to turn into this, to be like him. Tifa remembered the feather light-brush of Sephiroth’s lips on her forehead, his hand on her neck, declaring his own divinity to her. She remembered the energy that had passed between them; the perspective he’d shown her. Tifa rubbed her arms where he’d touched her and felt…she didn’t know.

_“I should feel revolted,”_ she scolded herself, but what she ought to feel and what she did weren’t quite as aligned as she wanted them to be.

A sick thrill was the fairest way to describe it. She despised him, she reminded herself, but that did nothing to prevent her from tilting her head back, palm pressed against her throat, replaying that particular moment in her mind. “What do I believe?” Tifa breathed, staring up at the nothing-sky of her subconscious. It was an overcast, hazy thing, like what late afternoon back on Gaia might have been when rain threatened.

If she was a goddess, could she command it to rain here? Inside her own head, that probably wouldn’t count as any sort of miracle; no more than using her imagination. Also, for all the knowledge and power she now supposedly possessed, none of it was enough to bring back Cid and Nanaki. No matter how hard she searched herself, she’d failed to find the slightest remaining spark of their conscious selves. Only pools of knowledge, very specific to each of them, remained. Nor was time her purview—she could tear open small holes in the fabric of space to get around, but she knew of no way to go back and correct the plethora of wrong moves that had led her to this point.

She was not omnipotent; neither was Sephiroth. They were both abominations still; nameless things that were better off far away from anything that could breathe. Not that she wanted to be genuinely divine, but it might have opened some doors.

Peering a little closer, she saw that her sky wasn’t entirely rainclouds. Dark energy veins had roped themselves around the ‘sun’ that represented the core of her soul.

Sephiroth thought he’d deceived her into absorbing it, but she’d known. The second it had entered, she’d felt the difference. It was consuming and oppressive like him, like his hair falling over her shoulders, his wings entrapping her, and the profanity of their fingers entwining while somehow his sword burst through her chest. She’d chosen to take a risk with it. She could have filtered it out or set it aside, but she’d already become something vile anyway—he’d murdered her own humanity—so there was no loss in accepting a part of him if she could use it as a means to an end. If she kept tabs on it, it might unveil some much-needed secrets about both of them.

But, oh how it ached. Where she’d expected raging malice and scheming vindictiveness, she’d instead found the horrific, death-defying, unfulfilled longing of a man who understood that a great part of what he sought bordered on impossible. Someone who was nonetheless unwilling to accept it and would do whatever it took to change the order of things and make a way.

Someone who knew he was making headway in changing that order, and so much of that yearning had come to point itself at her, willing that she should watch him, see him, know him, want him.

Tifa left off from monitoring the dark energy. It was at best demoralizing to consider that, in the midst of the endless terror he was raining down across the cosmos, she’d become such a central focus for him. She’d have to return to investigate it again later. Nothing had changed; she’d long since recognized that Sephiroth was obsessed with her. This just confirmed, up close and personal, what his behavior had already told her. It was nothing new, nothing to get any more out of sorts about than she already was.

But by the stars did it hurt, experiencing it for herself. She pushed it aside as much as it would allow her, but it wasn’t a fragment of detached spirit energy or like her friends, who she could simply silence when the need arose. It was part of her conscious self now. Still, she insisted it was not genuinely her. It could never be. She needed to treat it as a prisoner. She needed to avoid sympathizing with it too much, because the moment she did, the moment she lost track of that critical line where she ended and Sephiroth began, any fight she might put up against him would be over without exchanging a single blow.

Tifa looked up from the gulch and marched gradually onward. Straight ahead lay the piece of Edge she’d dreamt up for her friends, accompanied with the looming sensation of being a small child in deep, deep trouble. She didn’t have to be here. Keeping secrets from them was unwise, but she didn’t have to explain anything to anyone if she didn’t want to. It was her head and her decisions to make, as cold as that sounded. They just happened to live here, and their survival depended on her—she didn’t have to give away anything if it didn’t suit her.  

She wondered what she’d do if all they could offer her was the contempt she deserved. The decisions were hers alone, but she was at a total loss, and not only for how she was supposed to stop Sephiroth.

Her problem was that the only reason she had left for wanting to stop him was that it was _him._ She couldn’t say for sure whether he was truly in the wrong anymore; not after what she’d seen. No, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time, she didn’t want to hoard the universe’s life to herself. She was not like Sephiroth, but if any language-wielding race she ran into were just replays of Amyntas, Gaia, and the others? Maybe the whole thing did need a hard reboot.

Tifa reconsidered Sephiroth’s plans for herself. He was gathering power to enter the Promised Land and possess it—become it, as he had with so many planets. If successful, he’d become the source of everything, and his ascension would be complete. The source of all things, with all its knowledge; interminable.

What if…what if she could enter it, and coax it to start over on its own instead? That, she believed, would eliminate everything. Every living planet, every space-faring soul, including Sephiroth and herself, would be recalled to its origin. The conscious Promised Land only needed beat him to the punch, and the rightful cycle of life would begin anew.

She would finally perish. Her past agony, humanity’s mistakes, all the gross machinations that had made Sephiroth, and those that had caused him to flip, would be erased. Forgotten forever. Even he would finally rest with no chance of return.

Drawing nearer to the replicated town, Tifa grew confident that this was the way. Probably the only way left to them. Any hope of saving the universe as it existed was gone—they needed to focus on preserving its heart.

* * *

“Tifa!” Zack exclaimed when she slipped in through Seventh Heaven’s front door. “You’re…in here. With us.”

Cloud, Yuffie, and Genesis gathered with him to meet her. Aerith remained seated at a window seat in the back, arms crossed and tight-lipped, averting her eyes.

“What happened out there?” Cloud asked.

“Yeah, it went completely pitch black! We couldn’t see or hear anything. I didn’t think it was possible to stub my toes anymore, but I did,” Yuffie nervously, playfully elaborated.

“And it’s changed. Dramatically,” Genesis pointedly supplied the obvious.

“Tell us what you did, Tifa,” Aerith spoke at last. There was a cold, sharp edge to her voice she’d rarely employed in life. “Tell us how…you took Sephiroth’s word for everything and went along with whatever he told you to do.”

“Aerith?” Zack protested, but Tifa waved him off.

She approached the back corner, stopping several feet shy of her friend. “She’s right. Aerith, you’re right. Because of me, there are no more humans. I took them…but please try to understand, if I hadn’t, it would have been him! I didn’t know what else to do…”

Aerith stood and shook her head, rejecting her. “You know, while everyone else was blind, I saw everything. Because _you’re_ the planet now, Tifa. _You_. The Cetra listen to the planet, remember? We speak to the planet…” She paced closer until she stood inches from her face, staring her down. “But it’s really funny…I don’t have anything left to say to her.”

Yuffie, Cloud, and Zack visibly winced. Genesis leaned back against a post with crossed legs and one brow raised.

Aerith brushed past Tifa and strode out of the bar, slamming the door behind her.

“What happened,” Cloud repeated, a gravelly tremor in his tone.

So she filled them in. About what Sephiroth had revealed to her, and about why she’d come to believe there was no other recourse. Tifa apologized and groveled for what she’d done, all the while defending it as something for which she still couldn’t conceive of another solution. She was careful to leave off the parts about the drunken ecstasy that had overcome her around Sephiroth because of Gaia’s other half, or how she’d willingly merged with part of his soul.

“…That _does_ sound worse than Shinra,” Yuffie sympathized, but couldn’t look her in the eye. “All of those people…”

“I’m still not clear on something,” Zack said. “You really think he’d let you grab those worlds out from under him just like that if they were important to his mission?”

Tifa hesitated. Zack had pinpointed the weakest point of her reasoning: Up until it was much too late, she’d convinced herself that humanity was the end-all, be-all of disrupting Sephiroth’s goals—the very key to keeping him from the Promised Land. She’d let herself believe that once there wasn’t anyone who looked like old friends and family, if he’d been the one to claim them, that was the end. Realistically, she’d been holding onto the one last whimpering prayer she’d held out for returning to anything close to a normal life. Deep down, that was the loss that she’d been counting as total defeat.

But the death of humanity was nothing but the death of humanity. The rest of the stars and the galaxies remained, blissfully unaware of the forces that hunted them.

Ironically, what Sephiroth’s vision had taught her when he’d shown her all those other species should have been enough to dispel the idea that humans were necessary. But in the end, they’d had proven too predatory anyway, so what difference did it make? Stopping humanity and stopping Sephiroth— _getting so unbearably close to him and who he was and why he was—_ were all in the same vein.

It was all about saving life either way. That goal had never changed.

Anxious, she clasped her hands together. “I just…I can’t say it’s not right anymore. Not entirely. Maybe everything does need to start over.”

Yuffie’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “What!”

Cloud’s mouth hung slightly ajar, and a near-gagging sound escaped from the back of his throat before he could choke up a reply, “Tifa…What does that mean for you? What about the rest of us?”

Genesis let out a cynical chuckle as he pushed off from his support beam. “Though she is you, something of my pact with the Goddess remains. I too have seen the truth: It’s plain that Sephiroth wants you at his side. You’re inconsequential to his grand design, yet he can hardly grant you an inch to breathe when he draws near.” Passing her to join Cloud, glaring down his nose at her, he finished, “How many times he might have killed you; instead he whispers lurid promises in your ear like a would-be lover. He’s seducing you with your own sorrow…and it’s working.”

Tifa’s face flushed hot. Vivid, accusatory memories of being cradled in a cocoon of wings and arms fueled her humiliation. The way Sephiroth had held her after she’d borne witness to humanity’s crimes; the way she’d clung to him and called for him while pretending she wasn’t. And it had been obvious—crystal clear—that it was exactly what he desired of her.

She’d done it because, at least in those moments, she wanted the same.

“I’m not giving in to anything,” she insisted.

Cloud scowled. “Tifa,” he started, but then, “I don’t know. I’d say you’re not yourself right now, but with everything that’s happened…I can’t say…”

“But she _is_ herself,” Genesis countered. “She is who she’s always been, if not what. Secretive, uncertain, and desperate for control—for everyone’s good, I’m sure. You know this more than anyone, Cloud. Remind me: How long did she let you believe in a false past?”

“That was different,” Cloud retorted.

“I fail to see it,” Genesis shot back.

“You can’t be serious about this!” Yuffie cried. “I mean, think of how big the universe is, and you’ve only met humans and the Amyntasi. You can’t let everything go because you’re afraid they’re all bad.”

“If it’s all you’re looking for, that’s all you’ll find,” Zack added.

Genesis continued, “Yes, there is an inevitable perversion in every thinking race; mayhap in every living creature, but that is not all. Should you choose to follow Sephiroth or his path, you will be judging that it’s all that matters.”

Tifa turned her back to everyone, overwhelmed, and the onslaught of chatter stopped. Atrocious honesty poured out of her; she couldn’t stop herself—”Anything that’s good goes away. It dies. It fails. I’m tired of thinking about everything I can’t have,” she admitted. “I’m selfish…always have been, I think. I don’t…want to watch it anymore. None of this should have been my problem. I hate _all of it._ ” She cast a significant look over her shoulder. “And no matter who’s been there, no matter what they’ve meant…I think I’ve really always been alone.”

Before her friends could react, her confession forced her back to consciousness as though from a nightmare.

Friends. The very word now left a terrible lump in her throat.

Where had all that come from? Was it how she truly felt? It was, she decided. Of course she wanted to be there for anyone who needed her. She wanted to be useful, and there was nothing insincere in her love or care for Cloud and the others. She’d never had any doubts there, and had rested assured, at least until now, they’d reciprocated. But…except for a short period just before Cloud had died, she’d still felt cut off. There was an invisible barrier she couldn’t move past. The fragility of things, stacked upon years of unforgiving regret, made it all too difficult to embrace.

And it was Sephiroth, years ago in Nibelheim who’d broken her to be that way, and regardless of how many times she’d pulled herself together, she’d kept breaking along those same, reliable cracks.

Aerith, she was sure, hated her by now, and she deserved it. She’d betrayed her more than anyone. Yuffie was reeling, not wanting to believe the worst of her. The depth of her duplicity was beginning to occur to Cloud, but he was doing his best to think she was just having a hard time. Considering how Sephiroth had used him in the past, she expected no less.

_But she knew what she was doing. No one was controlling her._

Zack and Genesis were less affected, but they’d never really known her back on Gaia. It was a little harder for them to feel like she’d stabbed them in the back—they only knew her because the end of the world had dropped them in her head.

Around her, space was space, dark and heavy, and in her local vicinity, still. Gone was the old materia shell she’d once inhabited in the shape of Gaia’s old Omega. A private, transparent energy shield surrounded her in its place, deflecting any debris careening past.

While she’d been inside herself, she’d roamed away from humanity’s wreckage. Where, she didn’t know, and for now, didn’t care. When she was up to it, she’d consult the fields of knowledge she’d assimilated for some idea of where to go next.

One last time, she thought.

For her friends’ sake, she’d make one final effort before moving on to her last resort. She’d find one more species, a well-developed civilization that looked nothing like humanity. In a way, it was back to square one with her original idea: Find people out there strong and organized enough to take down Sephiroth. Unfortunately, that would naturally lead her astray of any pacifistic types she probably needed to witness for her own sanity, if they even existed. But her absence would also protect them.

Her helpers didn’t have to be perfect—just relatively decent. A people who didn’t hand over the reins of power to their worst elements when they were afraid, for starters. There would always be a few heartless souls, but most important was that those ones didn’t speak for everyone so fluently. No more Shinras. No more Mako reactors. No more genocides. Maybe a race who’d fought a few rough interstellar wars because they were attacked first, and had grown advanced along the way, but who’d learned to cherish life all the more through the loss.

Was that really so much to ask?

Tifa cried, because she knew how unlikely it was to find any group that fit such a specific bill. Asking anyone for sustained goodness over the long haul, even well short of utopia, was just not possible. Even if she found someone who should be acceptable, she was so alone and eaten up with anger that she knew she was bound to blow every slight out of proportion. She knew she couldn’t be trusted to be a fair judge. She didn’t want to be a judge at all, but she had to. She owed it to Cloud, Aerith, Yuffie, and everyone else she’d ever failed to give it at least one last hopeless go.

And then, when it all came crumbling down around her again, without another word to anyone, she’d fly away to the Promised Land. The time for debating would be over. She could enter now; she had the life and power of more than one Omega at her disposal to grant her passage. But her last efforts had to be earnest and honest. No matter how sure she was of the outcome, she’d do whatever she could for her friends. Anything less would only solidify that she’d truly turned on them.

The deep ache that was neither her nor hers stirred at her despairing thoughts. That man, that entity who’d so thoroughly earned her hatred—she was starting to wonder if there might be some value in speaking with him after all. No one understood betrayal quite like he did. No one had seen more of the universe, and though he’d likely try to mislead her, she still might be able to extrapolate more evidence of who and what was out there, and what it was all really worth.

No, she was not looking for his sympathy, and she was not relating to his past suffering, for all that it now resembled hers. This was still war between them, and this was another way to use him against himself. If he’d grown fond of her in the course of delivering his torments, that was none of her concern. His feelings were meaningless to her, she persisted.

The lead in the pit of her stomach weighed down heavier, and she continued weeping.

She did want someone who could understand; someone who would tell her that was she was doing was right. Someone her mental wall couldn’t block out.

Just not him. Not Sephiroth, who’d done nothing but rob her of anyone or anything of consequence to her; who’d poked holes in her psyche and had manipulated her into seeing the universe through eyes too much like his own. (And now that she’d experienced that view, she strongly suspected there was no returning from it. It demanded to be true, in one form or another. It was already slowly dragging her down.)

Wracked with violent sobs, Tifa glanced aside, startled when she felt a cold hand squeeze her arm.

No one was there.

 

 

 

 


End file.
